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Over half of all households now consist of two people
Henry Street in Dublin city centre Pic: Ireland's Content Pool

28 Oct 2020 / ireland Print

Over half of all households now consist of two people

More than half of households (57.2%) consisted of no more than two persons in Q2 2020, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has said.

One and two-person households together accounted for 57.2% of all the households in the State in Q2 2020 compared with 52.9% for the same period in 2014.

Three out of every ten (31.8%) households contained between three and four persons and 10.9% contained five or more persons.

Just over a fifth (21.4%) of all households in Q2 2020 consisted of couples without children while just over one-third consisted of couples with children (34.3%) and almost one eighth were lone-parent households (12.6%). 

There were 2,413,200 adult members of family units in Q2 2020 which was an increase of 19,600 or 0.8% from the 2,393,600 recorded a year earlier.

And in Q2 2020, 11.7% of those aged 0-59 years were living in jobless households, compared with 9.6% in Q2 2019, according to new CSO figures, drawn from statistics on households and family units from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) for the period Q2 2014 to Q2 2020.

Border region

The mid-east region had the lowest proportion of people aged 0-59 years living in jobless households in Q2 2020 (9.9%), while the border region had the highest proportion (17.7%).

There were 2,413,200 adult members of family units in Q2 2020 which was an increase of 19,600 or 0.8% from the 2,393,600 recorded a year earlier.

The number of adult members classified as being employed was down by 1.5% or 23,600 to 1,523,900 while those classified as unemployed fell by 16.7% or 9,100 to 45,400.

Employment rates for adult members of all family unit types fell in the year to Q2 2020 but the fall was more pronounced among those with children. 

Statistician Jim Dalton said: ‘The COVID-19 pandemic has had a considerable impact on the Irish labour market in 2020.

“That impact started towards the end of Q1 2020 and this is reflected in the impact on the labour market situation of members of the different family unit types in Q2 2020.”

“Looking at the results by age, there were an increased share of both adults and children living in jobless households in Q2 2020 compared with a year earlier.

Jobless households 

“The share of adults (aged 18-59 years) living in jobless households was 11.1% in Q2 2020 compared with 8.8% in Q2 2019 and the share of children (aged 0-17 years) living in jobless households in Q2 2020 was 13.0% compared with 11.3% in Q2 2019.

There were 2,413,200 adult members of family units in Q2 2020. Of this number, 1,523,900 were classified as employed and this was down by 1.5% or 23,600 from Q2 2019.

There were 45,400 adult members classified as unemployed and this represented a decrease of 16.7% or 9,100 from Q2 2019 while adult members who were classified as not in the labour force increased by 6.6% or 52,200 to 843,900 over the year.

Employment rates for adult members (aged 15-64 years) of all family unit types fell in the year to Q2 2020 but it was more pronounced among those with children. The employment rate for adult members of all family units with children fell from 76.4% to 74.5%.

Reduction

Within this category, the reduction in rate was highest for adult members of lone parent households which fell from 64.3% to 60.7% over the year.

The fall in the employment rate for adult members of couples without children was less pronounced, falling from 75.8% to 75.1% over the same period.

The labour force participation rate for adults in all family unit categories declined in the year to Q2 2020 with the largest fall in rate being recorded by adults in lone parent and single person family units.

Lone parent units

The job participation rate for adults in lone parent family units fell from 61.8% to 58.7% while the rate for single person households fell from 46.7% to 44.4%.

The employment rate for adults in couples-with-children family units fell from 78.2% to 76.3% while the participation rate for adults in family units without children fell from 50.5% to 49.4%.

The LFS is the official source of labour market statistics for Ireland including the official measures of employment and unemployment.

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