Families with children in Britain: findings from the 2008 Families and Children Study (FACS)

Characteristics of families (Chapter 2)In 2008, a quarter of families with children were lone parent families.Lone parent families were more than three times as likely to live in social housing as couple families, and nearly seven times as likely to have a total family income in the lowest income quintile.Families that contained no one working 16 or more hours per week were more likely to be in the lowest income quintile than those that contained at least one parent who worked for 16 or more hours per week.Nearly half of families in the lowest income quintile were lone parent families where the parent did not work 16 hours or more per week.The majority of couple families had two or more dependent children whereas the majority of lone parent families had one dependent child.Health, lifestyles and participation (Chapter 3) One in ten mothers described their health over the last 12 months as 'not good'.Lone mothers were nearly twice as likely to describe their health as 'not good' compared with mothers in couple families.Mothers who lived in families where no one worked were more likely to describe their health as 'not good' than mothers living in families where at least one parent worked.Eight out of ten mothers reported having no long-term illness or disability.Just over one-quarter of lone parents had a longstanding illness or disability, compared with one-fifth of mothers in couple families.Of those mothers with a long-term illness or disability, around three-fifths of lone parents and half of mothers in couples said it affected the kind of work they could do, or the place where they could work.Lone parents, social tenants and mothers in the lowest income quintile were the groups of people most likely to smoke.Conversely, alcohol consumption was highest for mothers in work or living in owned (or mortgaged) accommodation.Education and training (Chapter 4) Most families contained at least one parent with an academic or vocational qualification.All the families whose total family income was in the highest income quintile had at least one qualification, whilst over four-fifths of families in the lowest income quintile had at least one qualification.In general, lone parents were less qualified than those in couple families.Families with one or more disabled member were more likely to have no qualifications than families with no disabled members.Mothers who were social tenants were more likely to have no qualifications than mothers who lived in owned or mortgaged accommodation.Of all mothers, regardless of partnership status, three in ten had taken part in a training course in the previous year.Work (Chapter 5) As in previous years, four out of five families in 2008 had at least one parent working 16 or more hours per week.However, over two-fifths of lone mothers worked no hours compared with over one-quarter of couple mothers.Mothers in couple families who worked were more likely to be in highly skilled jobs than working lone parents.Working mothers in couple families were more likely to travel to work by car or van than lone mothers, whereas lone mothers were more likely than couple mothers to travel to work by public transport.Total family income (Chapter 6) Lone parent families were more than three times as likely as couple families to belong to the lowest income quintile (35 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively) based on equivalised income before housing costs.The working status of the family was seen to have a strong association with the probability of having a low income, with families with no parent in work or working less than 16 hours per week particularly likely to be in the lowest income quintile.Benefits and tax credits (Chapter 7) Just over three-quarters of families received either a benefit or a tax credit, other than Child Benefit.Nearly all lone parents received a benefit or tax credit, as did around three-quarters of couple families.The benefits families were most likely to receive (excluding Child Benefit) were Council Tax Benefit, Housing Benefit or Income Support.The median amount of income received from all benefits and tax credits was £70 per week.Lone parents, families where no one worked or worked for less than 16 hours per week, and social tenants tended to receive a greater amount from benefits and tax credits than other families.

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