 | http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1452334,00.html
UK single-parent society is government's meddlesome social
engineering
January 23, 2005
Leading article: The single-parent society
There are, as always, two faces to this government. One tells us in
almost every ministerial speech that new Labour is all about standing
up for and guaranteeing the prosperity of hard-working families. The
image is of Tony Blair's version of the American dream, with Mom, Dad
and the two kids beaming contentedly as they motor off on holiday,
grateful to be living in a paradise created by the government. The
reality is different, as an important new report by Jill Kirby for the
Centre for Policy Studies points out.
Since Labour came to power the proportion of children being brought up
by lone parents has increased by a quarter. Gordon Brown makes much of
his increased spending on children, so-called "child- contingent
support". Such spending has risen by 52% or =A320 billion. The main
reason is that the government is subsidising - and encouraging -
single parents at the expense of those hard-working families. Britain
has the highest proportion of children being brought up in
single-parent households in Europe. We are becoming the lone-parent
capital of the world.
Much of this is due to the government's meddlesome social
engineering. The chancellor is fond of telling us of his admiration for
America. His "New Deal" was a deliberate echo of a US economic
programme and he borrowed America's earned income tax credit. But the
similarities end there. In America such policies have succeeded in
stabilising the proportion of births outside marriage and getting
single parents into work, reducing the extent to which they are a drain
on the taxpayer. In Britain the opposite has occurred.
Nearly half of all single parents do not work, despite near full
employment and a government target of getting 70% of them into jobs.
Why should they? The chancellor has created perverse incentives that
discriminate against the traditional family and subsidise single
parents. Lone parents are five times more likely than couples to be on
welfare and twice as likely to be receiving tax credits (welfare
payments in all but name). The average welfare payment to a single
parent is five times that to a couple. The financial advantages of
being a single parent, or for couples breaking up for welfare purposes,
are too large to ignore.
The result is that while fertility is declining among middle-income
couples, it is increasing among teenagers and young single women from
poorer backgrounds. As Professor Robert Rowthorn of Cambridge
University puts it, the government may have given up on nationalising
the means of production but is effectively nationalising the means of
reproduction. The economic consequences are important. Every decision
to raise a child outside a couple costs the taxpayer thousands of
pounds a year and the social repercussions may be even more
significant.
The Treasury, predictably, has tried to rubbish the pamphlet. Frank
Field, Labour's former welfare reform minister, knows better. "We
should be using the tax and benefits system to help two-parent families
and not to discriminate against them," he says. He is right. Unless
the penny drops among ministers, we will count the cost for generations
to come.
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via
International Mens Organisation
http://internationalmensorganisation.cjb.net
Fathers Fighting Injustice
http://fathersfightinginjustice.cjb.net
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