Lone parents who receive child support payments are nearly twice as likely to have a job as those who receive no payments from former partners, new research reveals.

Nearly three-quarters of lone parents who are in work received child support payments in 2001 compared with only 40 per cent of those who are out of work, the study found.

Co-author Alan Marsh, of the Policy Studies Institute, said the change in 1999 to the working families tax credit had given parents who receive child support more incentive to work by abolishing the tax on maintenance payments.

The fact that lone parents were now on average older and less likely to have children younger than five had also increased the likelihood that they would have jobs, he said.

"But we also found evidence that there is still a bias in the receipt of payments towards the middle class, better-educated lone parent," Marsh added.

"The young, single never-married, who are about a quarter of all lone parents, rarely get maintenance."

Nearly one-third of lone mothers were receiving child support payments in 2001.

About half of child support payments to lone parents made through the Child Support Agency averaged £49 a child, compared with £59 for those paid under court or voluntary agreements.

'A summary of Family Change 1999 to 2001' from www.dss.gov.uk/asd/asd5