Document Topic: Employment and skills

Single parents in the UK: prevalence, characteristics and impact

20th Sep 2018

Single parents today In the UK: There are around 1.8 million single parents – they make up nearly a quarter of families with dependent children (i) Around one per cent of single parents are teenagers (ii) Around 90 per...

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References for Single Parents Today and Then and Now i. ONS (2017) Families and households, 2017. Table 1. ii. Gingerbread analysis of Labour Force Survey (April-June 2018). iii. See reference i. iv. See reference i. Statistics last updated February 2019

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Benefit sanctions inquiry: Gingerbread written submission to the Work and Pensions select committee

25th May 2018

Summary Gingerbread’s research shows that – contrary to government intentions – sanctions are not an effective tool to ensure either job-seeking behaviour among single parent claimants or effective public spending. The government must overhaul ‘conditionality’ (the rules setting...

Key findings Benefit sanctions do not fulfil the government’s intentions to change behaviour (thereby moving people into work), nor to ensure ‘fairness for the taxpayer’ Single parent benefit sanctions tend to arise due to one-off errors or...

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Unhelpful and unfair? The impact of single parent sanctions

17th Apr 2018

Summary Single parents want to work yet Gingerbread’s research shows that sanctions can make it less likely for parents to achieve that goal. This report also shows the first signs that Universal Credit risks making this...

Key findings Warnings and sanctions for single parents arise as a result of unrealistic and rigid job-seeking requirements under benefit rules, which fail to recognise single parents’ barriers to work (eg a lack of childcare or...

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One in four: a profile of single parents in the UK

21st Feb 2018

Summary This report profiles single parents today, to see how life has changed for the one in four families headed by a single parent in the UK. While huge progress has been made over the past 100...

Key findings Among the key findings about single parents today: Nearly seven in ten (68 per cent) single parents are now in work – two decades ago the majority of single parents were not in work Until 2008,...

This report profiles single parents today, to see how life has changed for the one in four families headed by a single parent in the UK. 

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An impossible bind: requirements to work under Universal Credit

1st Nov 2017

Summary The report examines the new job seeking requirements for parents with children aged three and four under Universal Credit (UC) rules. The research looks at this change which when fully rolled out with affect 220,000...

Key findings The findings show that a lack of part-time jobs and suitable childcare will make it difficult for parents with pre-school aged children to move into and sustain work.  This risks this group of parents...

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