The plummeting numbers of stay-at-home parents has been laid bare in new figures as Tories warn people are being put in an ‘impossible’ position.
Just 1.6million working age people are now classified as away from the jobs market to look after a family or household.
That is down from three million when figures started being compiled in 1993 – with soaring house prices and the cost of living meaning couples can no longer afford for only one person to be earning.
MPs urged the government to step in with more support, insisting many parents would prefer to focus on caring for young children.
Just 1.6million working age people are now classified as away from the jobs market to look after a family or household
Analysis of Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows the plunge has primarily been driven by changing behaviour among women.
Just 1.4million were inactive to care for family or a home in the first quarter of this year, compared to 2.9million in March-May 1993.
Thirty years ago home-makers made up 35 per cent of the ‘economically inactive’ population – but now the level is just 19 per cent.
The number of men in the category – which could also include people caring for elderly relatives – has more than doubled reflecting social changes in parenting, but from a very low base of 111,000 to 230,000.
Tory MP Miriam Cates told MailOnline: ‘One of the greatest challenges facing families in Britain is the near-impossibility of being able to survive on one income when children are small.
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‘We need to recognise what a profoud change this is from previous generations and now many parents face impossible choices when their children are small.
‘Of course we need affordable childcare so that parents can go out to work if they want to.
‘But we should also support parents to be able to work less or not at all in those vital early years if that is what they prefer.’
A study released by the ONS in March highlighted how numbers of stay-at-home parents has been bucking the trend implied by population changes.
The body modelled how demographic factors should be affecting figures on economic inactivity – people not working despite being working age – and then compared those estimates to what had actually happened.
Despite the surge, inactivity numbers look to have been offset by a dramatic fall in stay-at-home parents
The model estimated that the numbers dedicated to looking after their family or home should have risen by 18,000 between 2019 and 2022.
But in fact that category saw a dramatic 251,000 plunge – offsetting a much wider surge in inactivity numbers after Covid that ministers have been scrambling to address.
‘The reasons for this decrease are not fully understood, but potential contributing factors may include behavioural changes and a decreasing number of births over the last decade,’ the ONS admitted.
