The Austin Lafferty Solicitors & Estate Agents Blog

Think-tank the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has accused the Government of missing a chance in its latest budget to tackle the problem of family breakdown.

The CSJ says that while it welcomes the removal of the ‘cliff edge’ from the proposed child benefit reforms, the introduction of a gradual withdrawal of child benefit from households with one individual or more earning above £50,000 still provides a financial disincentive against couple formation and commitment.

The new model could also lead to a greater risk of benefit fraud, as couples who are cohabiting but not married will have to decide whether to voluntarily to inform the tax authorities of their personal arrangements, or deny the status of their relationship and continuing to claim the benefit.

The CSJ believes that eliminating this couple penalty is possible and affordable by integrating child benefit into the tax credit system. This measure would support the principle of wealthier families no longer receiving child benefit, but do so in a way that does not undermine two parent families and the aspiration of many lone parents to form couple relationships. According to the CSJ, failure to deal with these primary weaknesses reveals the Government’s disregard, in this instance, of family stability and marriage.

Recent research by the Australian Institute of Family Studies has found that children of married couples have higher levels of learning and social and emotional development than children of cohabiting parents or single mothers.

However, according to the authors, the differences in children's development were explained by the family's financial circumstances, mother's educational level and parenting approaches rather than the marital status of their parents.

According to researcher Ruth Weston, the study found that 31% of married mothers had a university degree or higher level of education compared to 15% of single and cohabiting mothers. Married mothers were also more likely to be employed and married couple families were less likely to experience financial hardships.

Cohabiting parent families were slightly worse off financially than married parent families but slightly better off than families headed by single mothers. However, of particular concern was the fact that the gaps between the children of single mothers and those living with married parents appeared to widen over time.

Ms Weston said the study also compared parents' reports on their approaches to parenting across the three types of families, and found there were differences between the groups regarding the extent to which they adopted a consistent approach to parenting. Married parents reported greater consistency in parenting than cohabiting couples or single mothers.

Partners provide a vital source of positive emotional support for the vast majority of people in the UK. Nine out of ten people who were married or cohabiting talk to their partner about their worries, according to data from Understanding Society, the world’s largest longitudinal household study of 40,000 UK households. Around 94% of those surveyed rely on their partner for support when a problem crops up.

As part of the Understanding Society study of 40,000 UK households, researchers asked people how much personal and emotional support they felt they received from not only their spouse/partner, but also other family members and friends. Respondents were also asked to rate negative support from their partner, other family members and friends including how much they felt criticised and let down by those people.

“Spouses or partners were largely described as providing positive support,” explains Professor Heather Laurie, Director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. “Some 88% of respondents said their partner understood the way they feel, with only 10% admitting that they had felt let down by their partner when they were counting on them.”

Understanding where people receive emotional support from is important, researchers argue, because existing evidence suggests a ‘buffering effect’ of having positive social support in the face of shocks such as divorce, ill-health, bereavement, or losing your job. Having positive and strong social support also appears linked with better psychological and physical health.

A recent study into family formation by researchers at Bowling Green State University’s National Center for Family and Marriage Research’s (NCFMR) has found that the majority (61%) of young adults have formed a family by age 25.

According to the research, over two-thirds of women (69%) have formed a family in early adulthood compared to just over half of men (53%). Education also plays an integral part in how a family is formed. Family formation in early adulthood was most prevalent among young adults with a GED diploma, at 81%. Those with at least a bachelor’s degree were least likely to form a family before age 25 (44%).

“Increasingly, young adults are spending more time in school as they pursue college and advanced degrees,” said Dr. Susan Brown, co-director of the NCFMR and a professor of sociology. “This tends to delay family formation—whether childbearing, cohabitation, or marriage—as most people aim to achieve financial security prior to starting a family.”

Researchers found over a quarter of young adults married prior to their 25th birthday. Over a third of them followed a direct or “traditional” pathway into marriage, meaning they did not live with their partner or have a child before getting married. Men were more likely than women to follow this “traditional” pathway.

The researchers also found out that living together is a strong pathway to marriage. Among young adults who got married, over three-fifths cohabited before tying the knot. Women are also more likely than men to live with someone before marriage (63% versus 57%).