This release is categorised as a CSO Frontier Series Output. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release as it may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources. For further information on the data sources, linking procedures, and limitations of this release, see the Background Notes section.
This release is based on linking administrative income data with those who indicated they were living in private households in Census 2022. When calculating household income, estimates for some households are underestimated, as not all income sources are included, such as undeclared employment income, inter-household transfers, and some foreign pensions. Throughout this release, the term administrative income will be used to describe the income sources covered.
Equivalised income allows for a more meaningful comparison of income across households by accounting for the number of adults and children living in the household, thus allowing for analysis at an individualised level. The term low-income threshold refers to households with an equivalised net administrative income of below 60% of the national median equivalised net income as derived from administrative data sources. In this release, the low-income threshold is deemed to be €16,271.
This release focuses on children aged under 18, living in private households with one or both parents.
This chapter looks at the proportion of children aged under 18, living in private households with one or both parents, that fall under the low-income threshold (60% of the 2022 national median equivalised net administrative income) by the characteristics of the parent(s) in the household.
Children living in households with no working parents had a higher risk of being under the low-income threshold, but these were also the least common type of household.
In 2022, over three in five (62.2%) children under 18 years of age living in a household with no working parent were below the low-income threshold. This decreased to one in four (24.3%) children in households with one working parent, and further to 3.7% of children in households with two working parents.
Over half (57.5%) of households containing children under 18 years of age had two working parents, while a third (33.1%) had one working parent and just under a tenth (9.4%) had no working parents.
Across employment categories, the proportion of children living below the low-income threshold increases steadily with each additional child aged under 18 in the household.
For a child in a household with no working parents, over half (53.5%) of children where there was one child aged under 18 in the household were below the low-income threshold, compared with 72.2% of children in such households with five or more children under 18.
Meanwhile, for a household with two working parents, 2.4% of children were below the low-income threshold if there was just one child under 18 in the household, compared with 14.6% of children in households with five or more children.
Looking at the distribution of households containing children by the number of children under 18 and number of working parents, highlights that over half of households have two working parents, until they reach five or more children under the age of 18, where it falls to under three in ten households. Of households containing one child aged under 18, 52.4% had two working parents. This fell to 29.2% of households that had five or more children.
Across the different types of family units, households with working parents had lower rates of children falling below the low-income threshold.
In the households of married couples with children, 71.4% of children under 18 were below the low-income threshold if there was no working parent, compared with 26.0% of children in such households with one working parent, and 3.5% of children with two working parents.
Similarly, in households of a one parent mother with children, 54.0% of children under the age of 18 were below the low-income threshold if there was no working parent in the household, compared with 17.6% of children with one working parent.
Households with no working parent make up a relatively small portion of households with two parents, but are more common in single parent households.
In 2022, households with no working parents constituted 4.0% of the households of married couples with children under 18; 8.1% of households of cohabiting couples with children; 24.4% of single father households; and 30.8% of single mother households.
In 2022, 3.0% of children where the highest earning parent worked in the professional occupation group were below the low-income threshold, compared with 22.0% of children where the highest earning parent had an elementary occupation.
In 2022, 2.7% of children where the highest earning parent worked in the financial, insurance and real estate activities (K & L) NACE economic sectors were below the low-income threshold. This compared with 24.6% of children where the highest earning parent worked in the accommodation and food service activities (I) NACE economic sector.
Higher levels of education levels amongst parents were associated with a lower risk of the child falling below the low-income threshold.
In 2022, 4.3% of children were below the low-income threshold when the highest level of education completed by parents in the household was doctorate (PhD). This compared with almost half of children (49.9%) falling below the low-income threshold when the highest level of education completed by parents in the household was primary level or no formal education.
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