THE HAGUE, 19/11/08 - Children of Moroccan and Antillean origin in the Netherlands are 10 times more likely to have parents living on welfare benefit than their white Dutch peers, Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS) data shows.

More than 7 percent of minors in the Netherlands, or more than 250,000 children under 18 years of age, lived in a household that depended on welfare benefit in 2007. Among white Dutch children this was 3 percent.

Among children with a Turkish and Surinamese background, the figure was much higher, at 20 and 18 percent respectively. This was still lower however than the figures among children with a Moroccan (28 percent), Antillean (30 percent) and 'other non-western' (28 percent) background.

"One reason for the differences is that relatively more people with a non-western background claim income support," said CBS. "And the number of children in these families is also often larger."