28 October 2020
Go to release: LFS Households and Family Units Q2 2020
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (28 October 2020) issued statistics on households and family units from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) for the period Q2 2014 to Q2 2020.
Commenting on the report, Jim Dalton, Statistician, said: ‘The COVID-19 pandemic has had a considerable impact on the Irish Labour Market in 2020. That impact started towards the end of Quarter 1 (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.
In Q2 2020, 11.7% of persons aged 0-59 years were living in jobless households compared to 9.6% in Q2 2019. Looking at the results by age, there were an increased share of both adults and children living in jobless households in Q2 2020 when compared to a year earlier; 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.
Of the eight NUTS3 regions, in Q2 2020, the Mid-East had the lowest proportion of persons aged 0-59 years living in jobless households (9.9%) while the Border region had the highest proportion (17.7%).
One and two-person households together accounted for 57.2% of all the households in the State in Q2 2020 compared to 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. Of this, 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%. 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. The 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 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%.’
Note to Editors
The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is the official source of labour market statistics for Ireland including the official measures of employment and unemployment. These official measures are based on the International Labour Organisation (ILO) concepts and definitions. The ILO measures are the international standard and all EU Member States are legally obliged to compile and provide this data to Eurostat on a quarterly basis. Please see the Information Note on the Impact of COVID-19 on the Labour Force Survey for more information.
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/lfs/labourforcesurveyquarter22020/
For further information contact:
Jim Dalton, Labour Market Analysis – 087-678-0316
Email: labour@cso.ie
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