ABSTRACT
Lone parent families today are a mainstream family type - they are not uncommon. According to the Households Below Average Income (see Appendix 1 for further details about data sources on lone parent families) for 1998/99, 8 per cent of all individuals, of all ages, were in lone parent families (Department of Social Security 2000, Table B1). If we just look at families with children, lone parent families made up about one in four of all families with children in 1998/99 (Department of Social Security 2000).
