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The whole picture, please: Single parenthood is not an economic choice
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Published in The Guardian website on Friday January 21, 2005
September 2005 Policy debate seems to have entered a time warp, with a report out today (21/01/05) suggesting that the benefit system substantially favours lone parents over couple families.
The Price of Parenthood, published by centre-right thinktank the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), suggests that: "A two parent, one-earner family on average income is now just over a pound a week per head better off than a lone-parent household entirely dependent on the state".
The report recommends that we should adopt an American model of welfare reform, imposing time-limited benefit payments and stringent work requirements on lone parents.
The central assumption of the report - that becoming a lone parent has now become a rational economic choice - is simply not backed up by the facts. One in three lone parents live on gross incomes of under £150 a week compared to just 5% of married couples, and a child growing up in a one parent family is still nearly twice as likely to be poor as one in a household where two parents live together.
A quick look at the calculations within the report shows that the conclusions have been reached only by a highly selective use of the figures: The assumption that 'Mr and Mrs Average' would only be £1 better off per capita a week after payment of tax and housing costs than a lone parent on benefits is entirely dependent on the average couples' higher housing costs. The report assumes a mortgage of £140 a week for the couple, compared to rent of £53.13 for the lone parents: hardly comparing like with like. If both families had the same housing costs (rather than the 'average' couple investing in their own home), the couple would in fact be £23.36 per capita better off than the lone parent.
As the report itself points out, when a couple splits up, the income of the lone parent is likely to substantially fall. Research suggests that following separation or divorce, mothers' income usually falls by about 17%. It's true that the rates of poverty in one parent families have been falling - but this reflects the large numbers of lone parents who have moved into work.
It's simply not true that lone parents are happy to 'languish' on benefits - over 1 million have moved into work since 1997, and 54.3% are now in employment, 28% full-time. Here again the report is fairly selective with the facts, reporting on the New Deal for Lone Parents prototype instead of on the actual programme. The latter has been extremely successful, and this model of active support to help those who want to work is now a key element of the government's welfare strategy.
Ultimately it's the conclusions of the report that are most important. Do we really want to respond to declining fertility among the middle classes by making more lone parents and their children poor? It's true that reforms in America have reduced the welfare rolls - but this has been done at a cost. In some states mothers with children as young as three months are required to work, moreover the reforms have done little to tackle child poverty. And the cost to the public - which seems to be the central concern of the CPS - was not reduced in America - the support needed to keep people in work, through training, in work tax credits and childcare, was just as expensive as the cost of welfare.
These arguments were last aired around 10 years ago, and stem from an agenda that sees lone parenthood per se as a moral ill. Luckily policy has moved on from that point - its high time that political debate did too. - Written by Kate Bell, policy and research officer at One Parent Families
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