Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-24-Speech-1-241-000"
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"en.20111024.21.1-241-000"2
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"Madam President, I wish to thank Ms Matera for her very useful and timely contribution, because the topic she has chosen is of the utmost importance. We must be aware that the structure of households in Europe is constantly changing, and that single parents (some are fathers, but the vast majority are mothers) now account for a growing percentage of households with children, and their numbers are on the rise.
Recent OECD analyses indicate remarkable similarities in all the Member States. By 2030, there will be between 22% and 29% more single parents than there are now, so what we are currently seeing is only the beginning of a very large-scale trend. This, of course, calls for action.
The first action is in our Europe 2020 strategy. We aim to reduce the number of people living at risk of poverty or social exclusion by 20 million. This is exactly the number of children at risk of poverty in the European Union today, and the figure rises to over 30% for children living with single parents. This is why we want to make a recommendation to the European Platform against Poverty and Social Exclusion on combating child poverty in 2012. It will propose principles and indicators in key areas such as support for families and access to essential services including child care, housing and education. Affordable child care is very important for single mothers and single fathers, who have to be able to enter the labour market if they do not want to be trapped by poverty and social exclusion.
We also need to know more about the phenomenon, which is why we are collecting data to identify trends and compare welfare provisions. Such data are already partly available in the OECD family database (which is cofinanced by the European Commission), and the new family support calculator is a tool that allows users to compare the income situation of various types of families. The European Alliance for Families is a very important EU platform for sharing good practice on family policies and fostering cooperation and mutual learning in this field. There is also our European Institute for Gender Equality, which analyses the data and develops methods and tools for gender mainstreaming and also facilitates mutual learning and the exchange of best practice.
Ms Matera, you said that it is the first time that we have spoken in plenary on this subject; I am very sure it is not the last."@en1
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