Risk of poverty in UK greater when father is sole breadwinner, finds IFS

Stagnant pay for men over past two decades and fast-rising earnings for women mean families relying on dad's pay alone are more vulnerable to hardship

Families who rely on a fathers' earnings alone are at greater risk of poverty than other households, with average incomes stagnant for the past 15 years, according to analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The IFS said that because the father works in most single breadwinner households, those families have not benefited from the relatively large increases in women's earnings since the mid-1990s.