Why do more Irish people live in jobless households than in the rest of the EU?

Seamus Coffey, UCC, has another blog post about high rates of VLWI:

http://economic-incentives.blogspot.ie/2017/11/very-low-work-intensity-by-household.html

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Seamus Coffey concludes that out high rates of VLWI are not due to household composition.

We have high rates across all household types.
 
The European Commission has been on Ireland's case in relation to this for several years, particularly through the European Semester process. Each year, Ireland would usually have a Country Specidfic Recommendation (CSR) that referenced this. This explains, in part, whiy Ireland published an Actional Plan on Jobless Households (https://www.welfare.ie/en/pressoffice/Pages/pr250917.aspx) back in September 2017.

2017 CSRs - https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/inf...ns-commission-recommendations_-_ireland_0.pdf - see paragraph 12 and CSR 2 and the end of the document.
 
It is quite extraordinary that one in two lone-parent households does not have an adult in employment.

Yes, childcare in Ireland is expensive but many of these households have only one child, and many more have teenagers who don't need childcare out of school.

The economy is close to full employment so it can't be blamed anymore. This is mainly an issue with the tax-benefit system.
 
We have very high rates of social welfare. That means it constitutes a higher proportion of household income. Is this more a reflection of that?
 
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Purple said:
We have very high rates of social welfare. That means it constitutes a higher proportion of household income. Is this more a reflection of that??
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If you have jobseekers, one-parent family payment, housing benefits, and medical card there is not much difference between working and not working. If your children are young you don't actually have to be seeking work either!

Granted, you retain housing benefits and medical card on your return to work, and also certain other benefits for a period.

I am not sure that we can fully say that it is not a compositional issue. 23% of households with children in Ireland are lone-parent families. I can't find equivalent data but this would strike me as high in an EU context.
 
NoRegretsCoyote said:
I am not sure that we can fully say that it is not a compositional issue. 23% of households with children in Ireland are lone-parent families. I can't find equivalent data but this would strike me as high in an EU context.
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Sure, but we know that a significant proportion of those are not really lone parent families but are just using that status for welfare purposes.
 
Purple said:
Sure, but we know that a significant proportion of those are not really lone parent families but are just using that status for welfare purposes.
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Not really. These statistics are based on Census data, not what people tell DEASP.

Individual census returns cannot be supplied (by law) to any other state agency.
 
NoRegretsCoyote said:
Not really. These statistics are based on Census data, not what people tell DEASP.

Individual census returns cannot be supplied (by law) to any other state agency.
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People aren't going to lie to Welfare and not lie on their Census form.
 
In some areas, a lot of “brothers”
are around when enumerators call to collect the census.
 
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