Wednesday 19 March 2014

How many working poor parents might be able to work more?


19 March 2014


Paul Gregg has written an interesting blog on working poverty https://smcpcommission.blog.gov.uk/2014/03/18/working-poverty-whats-going-on/
in which he suggests that the Universal Credit rules might be used to identify the working poor who might be expected to work more. The expectation in UC is that:
·                  One adult in a couple is in full-time work.
·                  Lone parents, or the second adult in a couple:
o    Work full-time if the youngest child is aged 13+.
o    Work part-time if the youngest child is aged 5-12.
o    Are not expected to work if the youngest child is under 5 years old.
It is possible to estimate an approximate size of these groups using secondary analysis of the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) data for 2011/12.

In 2011/12 17.5% of children were in households in poverty (income less than 60% median BHC). Of these 20.0% were with lone parents not in employment and 14.3% were with couples not in employment. So the rest 65.7% were working poor.  Of these, 4.3% had lone parents in full-time employment and 5.3% had couples both in full-time employment who could not be expected to work more. This leaves 90.4% of the working poor with children with a possible potential to work more.

The proportion of poor children with parents with working potential are as follows:
·         With lone parents working part-time whose youngest child is 13+=3.9%
·         With couples one adult working full-time and one part-time whose youngest child is 13+=2.1%
·         With couples one adult working full-time and one not working  whose youngest child is over 5=12.6%
·         With couples both working part-time=16.7%

The self-employed present problems because the HBAI classification is “Couple with children; one or more full time self-employed”. It is possible to identify that 41.4% of these have two adults working full-time. The rest have one adult working part-time or not at all.

·         With couple one adult full-time self-employed and one adult working part-time or not working with youngest child over 5= 6.5% (or 1.8% if youngest child 13+)


That gives a total of 41.8% (or 37.1% if 13+ for the self-employed) of children in working poor households where the adults have some more working potential.

This of course assumes the work is available. There may be other barriers to exploiting their work potential including disability or caring responsibilities. We found that 16.7% of those with work potential had an adult only with a disability, 6.8% had a disabled child only and 3.8% had a disabled adult and a disabled child. If these are deducted then the proportion with work potential would be 30.4% (or 27%).

It would be possible to obtain a more accurate assessment of the working potential using the Family Resources Survey.

The tables below provides a more detailed summary of the data.



Households with children in the sample
%
Children in the UK
%

6364
100
13088001
100
Equivalent income less than 60% median before housing costs
1058
16.6
2293048
17.5


100

100
No employment
429
40.5
785871
34.3
Lone parents unemployed
283
26.7
458563
20.0
Couples unemployed
146
13.8
327308
14.3
Some employment
629
59.5
1507177
65.7


100

100
Lone parents




Working fulltime
39
6.2
6411
4.3
Working part-time
74
11.8
146247
9.7
Of which youngest child 13+

29
4.6
58786
3.9





Couples




Couples both full-time
37
5.9
80937
5.3
Couples full-time and part- time
74
11.8
175293
11.6
Of which youngest child 13+
16
2.5
32033
2.1





Couples one working full-time one not working
152
24.2
428705
28.4
Of which youngest child 5+
78
12.4
191194
12.6





Couples both part-time
100
15.9
252671
16.7





Self employed
153
24.3
359216
23.8
Couples both full-time
66
10.5
148875
9.9
One part-time/not working
87
13.8
210341
14.0
Of which youngest child 5+
43
6.8
97226
6.5
Or 13+
Or 12
Or 1.9
Or 26728
Or 1.8





Total with some work potential

42.2 or 37.3

41.8 or 37.1



Work intensity of household
Total
Not working
Some work potential
Fully working

No disabled members
55.3%
72.8%
81.5%
69.8%
Disabled adult(s) only
29.5%
16.7%
8.7%
18.3%
disabled child(ren) only
6.2%
(6.8%)
7.3%
6.8%
Disabled adults and children
9.1%
(3.8%)
(2.4%)
5.1%
Total
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%

Brackets indicate small numbers

Note:  This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Social Policy Research Unit, nor of the University of York.

No comments:

Post a Comment