MYTHS ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY 1: “THERE ARE LOTS OF PARENTS WHO ARE OUT-OF-WORK WITH LARGE NUMBERS OF CHILDREN”

Whilst government rhetoric has suggested it wants to put an end to out-of-work parents having more and more children, the evidence suggests that the number of out-of-work parents with more than 2 children is relatively small:

Only 8% of those on out-of-work benefits have 3 or more children.

There is an average of 1.8 children per family in the UK. There is little marked difference in terms of the average number of children per family when broken down by the socio-economic status of the head of household.

Of the 973,000 families with three or more children in receipt of tax credits in 2010/11, 65.47% were classed as in-work (i.e. working 16 hours or more a week).v

A 2006 study by the Department for Work and Pensions found that the rate of couple families with at least one parent in-work (working 16 hours or more a week) differs little between families with three children (90%) and families with one (92%) or two (94%) children.

The same study found that a majority of families with 4 (80%) 5 or more (67%) have at least one parent working 16 hours or more a week.

So whilst the likelihood of either parent working 16 hours or more appears to reduce in households with 4 or more children (perhaps not surprising given the extra childcare costs and parenting commitments this requires), there seems to be little evidence to suggest that either a) a majority of large families are workless families or that b) workless families with large numbers of children make up a significant proportion of those claiming out-of-work benefits.