http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C2-1471297%2C00.html
February 05, 2005
Unmarried families are more likely to fall apart
By Alexandra Frean, Social Affairs Correspondent
THREE QUARTERS of all family breakdowns affecting young children now
involve unmarried parents, new research suggests.
The findings indicate that family breakdown is no longer driven by
divorce, but by the collapse of unmarried partnerships.
An estimated 88,000 children aged under 5 were affected by the
separation of their unmarried parents in 2003, compared with about
31,000 children under 5 whose married parents divorced, the research
concludes. According to the 2001 census, 59 per cent of households
with children are married, 11 per cent are co-habiting and 22 per cent
lone parent families.
The study is likely to provoke heated discussion among family policy
specialists. While it argues for the Government to do more actively to
promote marriage, critics say that encouraging parents who do not want
to marry to do so simply does not work.
Harry Benson, author of the research and director of the Bristol
Community Family Trust, an independent relationship education and
research body, based his findings on Office for National Statistics
data on divorce and jointly registerd births, together with ONS
research on the ratio between breakdown rates for married and
unmarried families.
The findings show that it is no longer plausible to argue that all
relationship types were equal, he said. “The evidence is irrefutable.
Unmarried parents are five times more likely to break up than married
parents. Divorce is not the major problem any more.”
Mr Benson’s research is the first in a series of reports on unmarried
parents expected to be published this year. One Plus One, the leading
independent relationship organisation, will shortly publish its key
study into the increasing number of children affected by unmarried
parents splitting up.
Penny Mansfield, director of One Plus One, said that Britain appeared
to have reached a watershed in the way families were forming. Whereas
couples in previous generations did their courting, got married and
had children in that order, nowadays growing numbers were having
children first and only then deciding whether to remain in a couple
relationship.
“The problem with this approach is that having children generally
destabilises a relationship. If you are trying to figure out whether
to form a partnership in the early years after having a child, it’s a
bit like pedalling uphill,” she said.
“What we have lost is the idea that at the heart of marriage there is
a link between parents which is of value of itself. That link would
then cradle the upbringing of children. Maybe we need to rediscover
this link in this new world of equality,” Ms Mansfield said.
Kathleen Kiernan, Professor of Social Policy and Demography at York
University, accepted that children of cohabiting parents could be
disadvantaged. They were more likely to live in different de facto
step-family arrangements because their parents were more likely to
split up than married parents. “We know that the more transitions, or
experiences like this, that children have, the more detrimental it is
to their wellbeing,” she said.
Ms Kiernan rejected policies promoting marriage, arguing that the
Government’s focus on the child, rather than the nature of the
parental relationship, was the best approach. “There is no strong
evidence that encouraging cohabitants to marry will enhance the
durability of their union,” she said.
Mr Benson, a married father of six, believes otherwise. His own
marriage was saved 11 years ago by a relationship education course.
Government support for relationship education could make a huge
difference. “The vast majority of family breakdown is avoidable,” Mr
Benson said.
Another way of stemming the number of unmarried family breakdowns, he
suggested, would be the reintroduction of tax advantages for marriage,
such as transferable tax allowances between husband and wife.
Mr Benson believes that his findings are significant because of the
growing body of evidence suggesting that children born to unmarried
parents and those raised in one-parent households lead less advantaged
lives than their contemporaries who are born to and raised by a
married couple.
“Children born to unmarried parents are already likely to have more
problems at school, work or with their well eing. If their parents
then split up, the outcomes can be worse still because family
breakdown itself is associated with all sorts of problems such as
crime, truancy, poverty and relationship difficulties.”
Mr Benson will present his research next week at a national conference
held to mark National Marriage Week.
The research coincides with the publication of new government figures
showing a 4.7 per cent increase in marriages in England and Wales in
2003 to reach 267,700.
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