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Lone parents and large families were the household types in whichpersons faced substantially the highest risks of being below 70 percent of median income and experiencing basic deprivation in theyear 2000 (Table 7.13). As the relative position of other householdsimproved through the boom of the 1990s, these families came toconstitute almost 40 per cent of those in consistent poverty asagainst 14 per cent in 1994. Looking at the risk of poverty by age, itis clear that currently the highest risk of poverty is in childhood(Table 7.14).TABLE 7.14Percentage of Persons Below 70 Per Cent Median Income Line andExperiencing Basic Deprivation by Age, Living in Ireland Surveys.1997 2000Aged under 18 15.3 8.3Aged 18-64 8.8 4.1Aged 65 or more 8.4 6.6All 10.7 5.5Source: Table 5.12, Nolan et al. (2002a).Tax and Social WelfareIt is a substantial achievement to have reduced consistent povertyfor children from over 15 per cent to around 8 per cent in the spaceof four years. Nevertheless, some 8 per cent of the nation’s childrenwere in consistent poverty after seven years of exceptionally strongeconomic growth and this is a cause of deep concern.Consistently across OECD countries, children’s poverty risks areseen to vary significantly with the labour force status of theirparents and whether they are being reared by one or two parents(Oxley et al., 2001). The Living in Ireland Surveys establish thatthis is also the case in Ireland. Table 7.15 makes clear that thework/no work divide is much more significant to the poverty riskswhich children run than their being raised by one or two parents. Achild being reared by a lone parent not in work has their poverty riskhugely reduced when that parent takes employment (from 44 percent to 8.2 per cent in 2000). As will become evident in the323