most of the decline in income in spain and the united kingdom is not explained by changes in family characteristics but refers to its unexplained share which largely reflects a change in conditional income returns for a family with given characteristics as shown in figure panel b this negative unexplained contribution in panel a is largely associated in spain with a decline in disposable income of the nonemployed fathers other characteristics being the same and with a decline in the income obtained by fulltime fullyear workers by contrast the disposable income of children with a working father remained stable despite an increase in market income in the bottom of the income distribution which suggests the transfers received were reduced over this period for low income families with a working father in the united kingdom the decline in disposable income for families with given characteristics is dominated by a drop in income associated with the mothers activity status figure panel b the drop is stronger when the mother has a job but is also significant when the mother has no job the drop in primary income linked to employment reflects a decline in the quality of employment for mothers of relatively poor families