[THE stereotype 'normal household - father out working…]

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THE stereotype 'normal household - father out working, mother at home, two children - is a uny minority of actual households. Although social conventions, advertising, housing provision etc. all take it as typical, it is about 5% of the total.

The recently published preliminary results of the latest General Household Survey give more background on this.

53% of households. are only one or two people. And 32% of all households (included in that 53%) are old people's households -people over 60 living either alone or with one other person.

Only 35% of households include children. Of those, 12% are single-parent households (this percentage has increased from 8% in the early "70s). Seven out of eight single parents are women, For women - including married women - to go out to work is not an excepton, or a matter of 'pin money' , but the rule. 58% of married women have jobs, and another 4% are looking for jobs. In the age 35-54, the proportion of married women who either have jobs oi are looking goes up to 69..

Interestingly, the survey reports that "The proportion unemployed married women who are not regis:ered has fallen steadily over recent years, from 70% in 19°5 to 41% in 1981" . (The proportion of unemployed Conies arailable (20p plus =se from 41 Ellington =- London V? non-married women who do not register is much lower16% - but it seems that this may be decreasing too!.

This may reflect increased willingness among women to demand and expect their right to a job.

So the stereotype is not typical. That does not mean, however, that it is a pure fiction.

The vast majority of people still get married at some time. Most have children i and live in 'nuclear' cami of households which nonsenous differ from the stereotype mostly do not represent a different pattern of life. Rather, they have not yet reached the stereotype, or (like the 32% of households which are old people's households) they have lost it and find themselves in the position of leftovers.

The stereotype is important for capitalism because it is an integral part of its economic mechanism. The leftovers, the missed-out ones, do not matter.

On the nature of the stereotype, the footnote in the report giving the definition of a "household" is most revealing: "A household is a group of people who all live regularly at the address... and who are all catered for, for at least one meal a day, by the same person". "All catered for by the same person"! Guess who...

The definition has just recently been changed to cut this revealing clause, but whether for feminist reasons is not clear.

20p