London , Oct 21 (ANI): A new OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) report has revealed that the divide between the rich and the poor was one of the widest in the UK .

According to it, the rich and poor divide widened by 20 per cent between 1985 and 2005.

But, the report also noted that the situation had been improving since 2000, with the UK experiencing the largest drop in inequality among all developed nations.

Unemployment is also a significant problem in the UK , the report found and added that 16 per cent of all households with a working-age head were jobless.

Only Belgium , Germany and Hungary have more people in households where no one has a job, the authors said.

However, the number of children living in workless households has fallen in recent years, said the report.

The researchers also discovered that the proportion of single-parent households in the UK had increased almost three times as fast as the OECD average, and now accounted for about seven per cent of the total population.

However, the report found that poverty had fallen significantly in the UK , with income poverty the number of households on less than half average income falling from ten per cent to eight per cent between the mid-1990s and 2005.

For the first time since the 1980s, the poverty level is well below the OECD average, found the report. (ANI)