Children living in long-term workless households in the UK: 2024

• In 2024, 1.2 million children (9.4%) lived in long-term workless households, up 1.2 percentage points on the previous year.

• Of those children in workless households, 83.6% lived in long-term workless households.

• The lowest percentage of children in long-term workless households was in the South West (6.6%).

• The highest percentage of children in long-term workless households was in the North East (16.6%).

Annual Population Survey (APS) household datasets are used for the analysis of family or household characteristics. For all analyses in this bulletin, a household is defined as containing at least one person aged 16 to 64 years. This bulletin focuses on the number of children living in workless households (households where no adult is in employment) and long-term workless households (households where no adult has worked in the previous 12 months).

The APS and APS household datasets have not been reweighted to the new populations. Consequently, all APS household tables remain weighted to the previous 2021 population totals, which will be inconsistent with those used for the Labour Force Survey (LFS) in the latest periods.

For a comparison of our labour market data sources and the main differences, see our Comparison of labour market data sources methodology.

APS household estimates are classed as official statistics in development. Until September 2023, these were called "experimental statistics". Read more about the change in our Guide to official statistics in development.

More information about the APS being classed as official statistics in development can be found in the Office for National Statistics's (ONS's) letter to the Office for Statistics Regulation about the APS.