25 pc kids grow up with one parent in UK

London, Apr 3 (UNI) One in four children lives with a single parent in Britain, according to a study which reveals the full extent of family breakdown in the country.

The independent report by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) states that the number of children in single-parent families has almost doubled in 20 years. It also notes that 13 per cent of the population lives alone.

''That is quite a striking feature of our society,'' said Joe Grice, an executive director at the ONS.

Anastasia de Waal, from the think-tank Civitas, said, ''Poverty is really concentrated in single-parent families, where there is only one income. What this Government is not doing is looking at ways of tackling the problem of single-parent families.'' Jane Robey, Chief Executive of National Family Mediation, said, ''Children need both parents. We have seen a huge rise in the number of single-parent families since we started in 1982.'' The ONS report also discloses that the number of men and women aged between 25 and 44 living alone doubled between 1986 and 2006, while the proportion of men over 75 living alone rose from 24 per cent to 32 per cent.

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