Children with Jobless Parents: National and Small Area Trends for Australia in the Past Decade

Abstract

This paper examines national and spatial trends in the number and proportion of children with jobless parents during the past decade. At the national level, we found that the number of dependent children living in households where no parent had a job fell from around 756,000 in 1995-96 to around 684,000 in 2005-06. This reflects the increasing employment rates in Australia over this period. The proportion of all dependent children living in jobless households also fell, from 15.6 per cent in 199596 to 13.8 per cent in 2005-06. Despite this progress, however, one in every 7 dependent children in Australia in 2005-06 still lived in a household where no parent had a job. Looking at small areas, we found that in three-quarters of the 1049 small areas considered – covering 80 per cent of all children – the risk of children living in a jobless family fell between 2001 and 2006.