Children with a non-resident parent

This article presents the findings of an Office for National Statistics (ONS) Opinions survey on children with a non-resident parent, carried out in 2008/09. It creates estimates of the number of children who have a non-resident parent, and compares these with ONS Labour Force Survey data. Other results explore the direct contact arrangements between children and their non-resident parent, and the partnership status of resident and non-resident parents, all of which are compared with previous studies. Results from the Opinions survey suggest that there were 3.3 million dependent children in Great Britain who had a non-resident birth parent at the end of 2008. Like many household surveys, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) cannot provide an equivalent figure because it does not collect information on birth parents living in different households from their children. However, as a proxy for children with non-resident parents, LFS can be used to estimate children living with one birth parent (children living with one widowed birth parent are excluded because they are assumed not to have a non-resident parent). Accordingly, the LFS shows that the number of dependent children in Great Britain living with one non-widowed birth parent rose from 3.2 million in 1999 to 3.8 million in 2009. The proportion of dependent children living with one non-widowed birth parent also increased from 27 per cent to 30 per cent.