[holding answer 14 January 2008]: The latest UK Labour Force Survey data indicate that 15.9 per cent. of children live in workless households, a fall of 450,000 (or 2.9 percentage points) since 1997. This is greater than the rate of improvement seen in the EU15, where the proportion of children in workless households has fallen by 1.9 percentage points since 1997.
There has been a similar above average improvement in the proportion of children in relative poverty since 1997 as the Secretary of State indicated in his answer of 7 January 2008, Official Report, column 5.
Detailed information on the current position by country of the proportions of children in workless households is set out in the following table:
Percentage EU (27 countries) 19.4 EU15 19.3 United Kingdom (ONS estimate) 15.9 United Kingdom (Eurostat estimate) 16.7 Hungary 14.0 Belgium 13.5 Bulgaria 12.9 Ireland 11.2 Slovakia 10.5 France 9.8 Croatia 29.8 Poland 9.5 Romania 9.4 Germany 9.3 Latvia 8.6 Malta 8.4 Czech Republic 7.9 Estonia 7.3 Lithuania 6.9 Austria 6.1 Netherlands 5.9 Italy 5.8 Denmark 25.0 Spain 5.0 Finland 24.9 Portugal 4.8 Luxembourg 4.0 Greece 3.9 Cyprus 3.7 Slovenia 2.5 1 Estimate. 2 Data refer to 2006. Note: Eurostat definition of children in workless households is "children aged 0 to 17 who are living in households where no one is working". Definition used by ONS is "percentage of children aged under 16 in a working-age household where no adult works". Source: EU Labour Force Survey and UK Office for National Statistics.