Affinities comment: 'The widening gulf between rich and poor is connected with family breakdown'

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Wednesday, 18, Jul 2007 12:00

It is extraordinary how commentators in the UK who have been examining the proposals from the Conservative Social Justice Policy Group in Breakthrough Britain are inclined - in their next breath - to start talking about the widening gulf between rich and poor, as if the two were not connected. It is not surprising that the gulf is widening. As long as the UK social statistics continue to worsen, the gulf will continue to widen.

There is lots of evidence for this, for example Marriage and the Economic Well-Being of Families with Children - A Review of the Literature by Robert I. Lerman

Published: July 1, 2002. This report was prepared for the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office. It contains:

“These changes in family structure have caused a great deal, perhaps all, of the increases in child poverty between the early 1970s and the 1990s (Lerman 1996; Sawhill 1999). In addition, the shift toward single-parent families may have contributed to a higher incidence of other social problems, such as higher rates of school dropouts, of alcohol and drug use, of adolescent pregnancy and childbearing, and of juvenile delinquency (Lang and Zagorsky 2000; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994). Family structure has become so important to the well-being of American children that some observers now argue that marriage is replacing race, class, or neighborhood as the greatest source of division in the U.S. (Rector, Johnson, and Fagan 2001; Rauch 2001).

Recognizing the critical role of family structure, especially in low-income communities, the Congress placed the issue of marriage on the nation's legislative agenda when it passed new welfare laws in 1996 under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA, P. L. 104-193). PRWORA emphasized marriage as the foundation of a successful society and as critical to the interests of children. PRWORA aimed not only to expand work and reduce welfare dependency, but also specified explicit goals to "end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting...marriage," "prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies," and "encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families."

In the six years since the passage of PRWORA, the idea of a public policy role in promoting marriage has gained strength. In the context of reauthorizing the primary welfare program (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, or TANF), the Bush Administration proposed funding for efforts to support healthy marriages through education, training, mentoring, public advertising, and reducing financial disincentives to marry.”

Although there has been much favourable comment on the proposals from the Conservative SPJG, many of the UK writers, broadcasters and leaders of charities concerned with child poverty continue to discount the value of marriage and to ignore the evidence that supports it, including “the critical role of family structure”, quoted above.