Close to 11,000 single parents are currently receiving children’s allowance, Social Affairs Minister Michael Farrugia said in Parliament. He gave a breakdown of the 10,913 single parents following a parliamentary question by Ċensu Galea (PN).

Most of the single parents, 8,339, are female and 2,574 male. Ninety-six per cent live in Malta (10,445), while 465 females and 124 males live in Gozo.

The number of male single parents (27 per cent) living in Gozo is marginally higher than the 23 per cent registered in Malta (2,449 male and 7,996 female).

St Paul’s Bay is the locality with the most single parents (212 males and 468 females), making up seven per cent of the total in Malta. In Gozo, 22 per cent of single parents (17 males and 84 females) live in Victoria.

No single parents are registered in five localities: Bidnija, Madliena, Paceville, Wardija and Żebbiegħ.

The most children in a single-parent household? Nine

The number of single parents has increased by 366 since March 2015. Then, 14,775 children were living in a single-parent household. Of these, 7,720 lived in a one-child household, 2,532 children in two-child households and 756 children in larger single-parent households. The largest number of children in a single-parent household was nine.

Less than half of all single parents benefit from social assistance or unemployment benefits. Data tabled in Parliament indicates 5,184 single parents of 10,547 received these benefits in April 2015, getting 3.75 per cent and 2.3 per cent of the total sum disbursed in social assistance and unemployment assistance, respectively.

The 26- to 35-year-old cohort (2,201) was the largest age segment of single parents in receipt of social benefits, followed by the 36- to 45-year-olds (1,617) and the 18 to 25 years (1,272). Eurostat data released last March indicated that 48.3 per cent of single people with one or more dependent children were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2014.

This was almost twice the average and higher than any other household type.

At member state level, changes between 2010 and 2014 in the risk of poverty or social exclusion rate for single-parent households varied widely, from a 12.7 per cent increase in Cyprus to a fall of 13.7 per cent in Germany.

While Malta registered the second largest drop in the risk of poverty among single-parent households, 46.3 per cent of the persons living in single-parent families were still below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold.

Localities with highest numbers of single parents in receipt of children’s allowance in June 2016