What a start!

What chance would you give to them to make a success of life, when they hobbled by their home situations?

We are talking about the proportion of children who are living in a household where no one is working. The situation will have been made worse by the recession, but the trend was there before the recession started.

The recent Regional Trends reported two worrying statistics.
1) On average 15% of children in this country live in a family where no-one is working. The problem is concentrated into certain regions. Thus in London it is 23%, while in the North east, North West, the West Midlands and Wales it is 18%.

In these areas, even when there is relief from benefits, there is income deprivation and there are role models lacking in hope, expectation or skills. The children in many cases are third generation of families where few have been gainfully employed.

2) Of families with children, 25% have a single parent present. In London the figure is 31%. The problem here is that in many cases these families will also be the same as those in point 1) above.

All serious studies have discovered that families with only one parent produce lower educational achievement, social problems and future benefit dependency.

The two findings point to a need which has received slogans and initiatives but which has never been seriously altered in half a century. "Solving" it would be the holy grail, or even reducing the sizes. Any improvement would have a knock on effect on school performance and educational achievement for the deprived and others, and on anti-social behaviour and crime.