Unwed mothers and the state

southsiderosie

The NY Times just ran an article noting that, for the first time in US history, a majority of births to women under the age of 30 happen outside of marriage.

Among mothers of all ages, a majority — 59 percent in 2009 — are married when they have children. But the surge of births outside marriage among younger women — nearly two-thirds of children in the United States are born to mothers under 30 — is both a symbol of the transforming family and a hint of coming generational change.

One group still largely resists the trend: college graduates, who overwhelmingly marry before having children. That is turning family structure into a new class divide, with the economic and social rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education.

“Marriage has become a luxury good,” said Frank Furstenberg, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

The shift is affecting children’s lives. Researchers have consistently found that children born outside marriage face elevated risks of falling into poverty, failing in school or suffering emotional and behavioral problems.

The article points out several key reasons for this shift, including declining real wages for men with less than a college education and rising wages for women, the decline in social stigma around being an unwed mother, the expansion of state social safety net programs which disincentivizes marriage, and a modern view of marriage as something based on emotional fulfillment rather than the creation of a social and economic unit.

Is this something that we should be concerned about? Is this something that government should be concerned about? If so, what should be done?

On this issue I am torn: I generally try not to bother with other adults' decision-making processes around marriage, family, etc, but the empirical evidence that two-parent families are - as a general rule - better for children is pretty compelling. That said, I don't think pushing 'marriage' on neer do well parents will somehow magically lead to an outpouring of responsible behavior - it will just lead to unhappy marriages and a higher divorce rate. As for withdrawal of state benefits, how do you avoid punishing children for the sins of their (perhaps absentee) parents?

I don't think there are any easy solutions here, but I'm curious as to what other people think.

woodoo

In this country unwed mothers are more likely to be claiming One Parent Family Payments, Family Income Supplement and Medical Cards. This is a drain on the welfare budget. Which currently stands at €21 billion per year. Obviously not all unwed mother are single or claiming benefits but married couples can't claim OPFP and with 2 incomes are less likely to qualify for other benefits. Unemployed parents being the exception.

K-9

southsiderosie wrote: »

The NY Times just ran an article noting that, for the first time in US history, a majority of births to women under the age of 30 happen outside of marriage.



The article points out several key reasons for this shift, including declining real wages for men with less than a college education and rising wages for women, the decline in social stigma around being an unwed mother, the expansion of state social safety net programs which disincentivizes marriage, and a modern view of marriage as something based on emotional fulfillment rather than the creation of a social and economic unit.

Is this something that we should be concerned about? Is this something that government should be concerned about? If so, what should be done?

On this issue I am torn: I generally try not to bother with other adults' decision-making processes around marriage, family, etc, but the empirical evidence that two-parent families are - as a general rule - better for children is pretty compelling. That said, I don't think pushing 'marriage' on neer do well parents will somehow magically lead to an outpouring of responsible behavior - it will just lead to unhappy marriages and a higher divorce rate. As for withdrawal of state benefits, how do you avoid punishing children for the sins of their (perhaps absentee) parents?

I don't think there are any easy solutions here, but I'm curious as to what other people think.

The message seems to getting across here at young teenagers, with the teenage pregnancy rate dropping 35% from 2001, the usual inner city areas still a blackspot area:

Teen pregnancies fall by 35% - irishhealth.com

While Googling, Louth seems to be an outlier, a 40% increase!
Teenage birth rates ump by over 0 in County Louth - News - Drogheda-Independent.ie


IIRC the single parent birth rate is still rising and that would back up the idea that single parents are increasingly not your stereotypical, poor and uneducated young girl.

woodoo wrote: »

In this country unwed mothers are more likely to be claiming One Parent Family Payments, Family Income Supplement and Medical Cards. This is a drain on the welfare budget. Which currently stands at €21 billion per year. Obviously not all unwed mother are single or claiming benefits but married couples can't claim OPFP and with 2 incomes are less likely to qualify for other benefits. Unemployed parents being the exception.

Family Income Supplement is for lower income families and with one income coming in, Single Parents are going to claim it more than a 2 income family.

The Government is already bringing in measure to cut the OPFP with cutting is at age 13/14 and I'd say there'll be more measures like that.

As for single parent families, a large section are divorced families which don't seem to attract the same amount of media inches or discussion.

FreudianSlippers

It's fairly arbitrary to just compare statistics from the US to Ireland. There are so many external and internal factors that make statistics like these from the US about as relevant in Ireland as weather data or farming subsidies.

There are plenty of couples who don't "believe" in marriage and are happy having children together without any problems

not to mention there is so much support here i am not sure these usa stats are comparable at all

it seems a little out of date to me to be talking about children in or out of marriage to be honest

Manach

Marriage in the traditional sense evolved in response to the openness of arrangements in the Classical world. Here the state had to step in to enforce mores to ensure that the contract based approach to marriage led to decreases in the birthrate. The Church by elevating marriage as a sacrament, lead to the attribute of lifelong commitment and hence provided a more stable environment for the family. This viewpoint held up till the watershed of the 1960.

southsiderosie

bluewolf wrote: »

There are plenty of couples who don't "believe" in marriage and are happy having children together without any problems

not to mention there is so much support here i am not sure these usa stats are comparable at all

it seems a little out of date to me to be talking about children in or out of marriage to be honest

Yes, I thought one of the more interesting asides in the article was the fact that cohabitation with kids (but without marriage) was relatively stable in Europe versus the U.S.(although it didn't specify which countries). But I guess this raises the question then: is this something the state should be supporting? Especially given the fiscal position of a lot of European governments?

I guess the economic answer is 'no' but IIRC, it is the countries which provide massive support to working families that have been able to somewhat maintain their fertility rates. So from a demographic perspective, the answer would be yes!

Finally, I think people talk about children out of marriage because the data is pretty clear: the socioeconomic outcomes for kids born to unmarried single mothers are appreciably worse than those for children born to stable two-parent families. So however people feel about marriage, there are economic and social reasons to care about the family structures that children are born into.

Let's not get too PC this early into the discussion!

One group still largely resists the trend: college graduates, who overwhelmingly marry before having children. That is turning family structure into a new class divide, with the economic and social rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education.

This is the one point that sticks out to me the most. What correlation can we have between education and marriage, that doesn't simply come down to a belief in that group that their children deserve a stable home? Obviously there might be more social pressure etc, but the disincentivisation of marriage even in Ireland with LPA etc simply has a negative effect for children. And what does the child do when they see that daddy doesn't really care, will they go on to be super-dads themselves? I doubt it.

There has to be a bit of cop-on at some stage that if you are going to have a kid then you don't simply get to do whatever you want. The kid now comes first. I see shows like "Teen Mom" and not only do the girls all have kids, but so do all of their friends. It's unreal.

Ireland is definitely not as bad, though. If it's one thing we're good at in this country, it's pressuring people into maintaining social norms!

JustinDee

woodoo wrote: »

In this country unwed mothers are more likely to be claiming One Parent Family Payments, Family Income Supplement and Medical Cards

A lazy and subjective presumption, I'd say.

Aside from the revenue commissioners, it is nobody else's business if a child's parents are married or not.

JustinDee

JustinDee wrote: »

A lazy and subjective presumption, I'd say.

Aside from the revenue commissioners, it is nobody else's business if a child's parents are married or not.

You are right, it essentially is nobodies business. The only problem is it kind of becomes our business when children from single mothers are far more likely to become a burden to the state in some way, be it anti-social behaviour, teenage pregnancy, drug addiction etc etc


Where do we draw the line under "Ah sure gwan have as many kids as you want. It's our duty to pay for them." Is there a line to draw in the first place? Or do we just hope for things to work out OK?

JustinDee

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

You are right, it essentially is nobodies business. The only problem is it kind of becomes our business when children from single mothers are far more likely to become a burden to the state in some way, be it anti-social behaviour, teenage pregnancy, drug addiction etc etc

You are presuming that firstly unmarried parents entail single parenting and secondly, that children brought up in such a family are likely to be problem kids and adults. Unbelievably presumptuous and actually quite the insult.

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

Where do we draw the line under "Ah sure gwan have as many kids as you want. It's our duty to pay for them." Is there a line to draw in the first place? Or do we just hope for things to work out OK?

If you're worried about money, then start at the largest family handout there is: children's allowance.
Why should parents (married or unmarried) be automatically given, an unweighted or means-tested amount of money just for having children? Nowhere else does this without case testing except Republic of Ireland. What entitles a couple earning say €30,000-plus each a handout just for the fact that they bore kids?

JustinDee

JustinDee wrote: »

You are presuming that firstly unmarried parents entail single parenting and secondly, that children brought up in such a family are likely to be problem kids and adults. Unbelievably presumptuous and actually quite the insult.

Well, you quoted someone who was talking about LPA. That's what I was responding to. I feel bloody filthy referencing the daily mail but here goes: Article

The increase in co-habitation has been blamed for the rise in single-parent families because co-habitees are three times more likely to split up than married couples. Some 62 per cent of dependent children live in a married couple family, down from 68 per cent ten years ago.

There are tons of statistics online which say I wasn't being presumptuous at all.

If you're worried about money, then start at the largest family handout there is: children's allowance.
Why should parents (married or unmarried) be automatically given, an unweighted or means-tested amount of money just for having children? Nowhere else does this without case testing except Republic of Ireland. What entitles a couple earning say €30,000-plus each a handout just for the fact that they bore kids?

We're probably in agreement on this one.

K-9

southsiderosie wrote: »

Yes, I thought one of the more interesting asides in the article was the fact that cohabitation with kids (but without marriage) was relatively stable in Europe versus the U.S.(although it didn't specify which countries). But I guess this raises the question then: is this something the state should be supporting? Especially given the fiscal position of a lot of European governments?

I guess the economic answer is 'no' but IIRC, it is the countries which provide massive support to working families that have been able to somewhat maintain their fertility rates. So from a demographic perspective, the answer would be yes!

Finally, I think people talk about children out of marriage because the data is pretty clear: the socioeconomic outcomes for kids born to unmarried single mothers are appreciably worse than those for children born to stable two-parent families. So however people feel about marriage, there are economic and social reasons to care about the family structures that children are born into.

Is it not more advantageous for the state for couples to remain unmarried, less tax reliefs, that type of thing? I just don't see were the cost is with 2 comparable familes, one married, one not.

K-9

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

You are right, it essentially is nobodies business. The only problem is it kind of becomes our business when children from single mothers are far more likely to become a burden to the state in some way, be it anti-social behaviour, teenage pregnancy, drug addiction etc etc


Where do we draw the line under "Ah sure gwan have as many kids as you want. It's our duty to pay for them." Is there a line to draw in the first place? Or do we just hope for things to work out OK?

That's generally because single parent families are from poorer backgrounds, poverty being the causation.

As for more kids, the vast majority of single parent families have 1 or 2 children. About 30% have more and when you take out divorced and widowed families out of that, the stereotypical 4*4 single parent really is, a stereotype. Same as the young teenage mother wheeling the pram.

Manach

The state seems to recognise there might be an issue based on the recent Civil Parternership ... Cohabitants act 2010. One of the sections in it lowers the persumption that couples living together outside marriage fall into the category of Cohabitants - unless they expressly state otherwise.
The stated reasoning behind this is to provide protection to parties in regard their assets if/when the cohabitation ends.
Thus this seems to be a modern halfway house to marriage.

Nodin

Manach wrote: »

Marriage in the traditional sense evolved in response to the openness of arrangements in the Classical world. Here the state had to step in to enforce mores to ensure that the contract based approach to marriage led to decreases in the birthrate..

You've some source or other for that?

K-9

K-9 wrote: »

That's generally because single parent families are from poorer backgrounds, poverty being the causation.

The dilemma with this idea though is that the poverty simply perpetuates itself when the child doesn't have a stable platform to educate himself out of poverty. How do we know that poverty causes single parent families. I would have thought it could very easily be the other way around. You're already lowering your family income by half - again I'll reiterate on what I've said before in that a child's education will usually have to be supplemented at home where state schooling falls short. This will obviously be easier in a two parent family.

Can anyone hazard a guess as to why people with college educations are more likely to marry? Surely if some of the theories here are true, then we can't attribute the lack of marriage with a change in ideals among the population in general. I.e. marriage becoming 'old-fashioned'.

Manach

Nodin wrote: »

You've some source or other for that?

Based mostly from my recollection of the book, "Full Circle: How the classic world came back to us" - by F. Mount. A reasonable read, especially on the section on how modern baths were re-popularised by a Corkman, Dr. Barter.
Another source was a book on "Law and life of Rome", by Crook.

Oddjob

JustinDee wrote: »

You are presuming that firstly unmarried parents entail single parenting and secondly, that children brought up in such a family are likely to be problem kids and adults. Unbelievably presumptuous and actually quite the insult.


If you're worried about money, then start at the largest family handout there is: children's allowance.
Why should parents (married or unmarried) be automatically given, an unweighted or means-tested amount of money just for having children? Nowhere else does this without case testing except Republic of Ireland. What entitles a couple earning say €30,000-plus each a handout just for the fact that they bore kids?

The couples earning €30,000 each are paying the tax that is keeping this country afloat, they're paying the social welfare bills for their neighbour's rent allowance, and the four kids that they have no idea who the father is, and their schooling, and the made up jobs in Community employment schemes, and the carers allowance that people feel they need to look after their elderly parents,and the countless kids with add who need a few hundred quid a week in allowances

who do you think is paying for all this?

They're keeping the country going, what are you contributing?

K-9

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

The dilemma with this idea though is that the poverty simply perpetuates itself when the child doesn't have a stable platform to educate himself out of poverty.

Which is why the 35% decrease in the teenage mum birth rate is encouraging. The message seems to be getting through.

How do we know that poverty causes single parent families. I would have thought it could very easily be the other way around.

I think you picked me up wrong. You don't have to be from a poor background to be a single parent for it to make you go into poverty.

You're already lowering your family income by half - again I'll reiterate on what I've said before in that a child's education will usually have to be supplemented at home where state schooling falls short. This will obviously be easier in a two parent family.

I don't know if it's actually two parent families that are that much easier. Would be interesting to see the comparisons between inner city 2 parents and 1 parent families.

Can anyone hazard a guess as to why people with college educations are more likely to marry? Surely if some of the theories here are true, then we can't attribute the lack of marriage with a change in ideals among the population in general. I.e. marriage becoming 'old-fashioned'.

God knows! Maybe its the more institutionalised choice! Again, probably finances etc.

K-9

Oddjob wrote: »

The couples earning €30,000 each are paying the tax that is keeping this country afloat, they're paying the social welfare bills for their neighbour's rent allowance, and the four kids that they have no idea who the father is, and their schooling, and the made up jobs in Community employment schemes, and the carers allowance that people feel they need to look after their elderly parents,and the countless kids with add who need a few hundred quid a week in allowances

who do you think is paying for all this?

They're keeping the country going, what are you contributing?

Would be more couples earning 50k each in fairness. 30k each wouldn't pay that high a percentage of income on tax, though it has increased in the last couple of years.

Oddjob

K-9 wrote: »

Would be more couples earning 50k each in fairness. 30k each wouldn't pay that high a percentage of income on tax, though it has increased in the last couple of years.

There's a vastly diminishing pool of couples earning €50k a year each to serve the ever growing welfare pool.

For every office with 10 rich bankers in the IFSC, their taxes are probably supporting a small cul-de-sac in Killinarden.

K-9

Oddjob wrote: »

There's a vastly diminishing pool of couples earning €50k a year each to serve the ever growing welfare pool.

And the 100k Income couple are paying more taxes to compensate!

Anyway 2010 report on earnings and tax paid if you feel so inclined!

http://www.revenue.ie/en/about/publications/statistical/2010/income-distribution-statistics.pdf

Couples with total Incomes of 50-75k pay about 15% of all the taxes paid by couples.

Total income of 75k - 100k 20%, 100k - 150k 26%, 150k - 275k 18%, over 275k 17.5% though obviously with far less numbers.

Oddjob

K-9 wrote: »

And the 100k Income couple are paying more taxes to compensate!

Anyway 2010 report on earnings and tax paid if you feel so inclined!

http://www.revenue.ie/en/about/publications/statistical/2010/income-distribution-statistics.pdf

Couples with total Incomes of 50-75k pay about 15% of all the taxes paid by couples.

Total income of 75k - 100k 20%, 100k - 150k 26%, 150k - 275k 18%, over 275k 17.5% though obviously with far less numbers.

Those numbers are pure stupidity, how does a % of tax paid have any relevance? And you got to moderate this place?

K-9

Oddjob wrote: »

Those numbers are pure stupidity, how does a % of tax paid have any relevance? And you got to moderate this place?

Well it must have some importance if it's in the report, obviously they think it has, along with things like number of cases etc.

What's your reasoning that it doesn't have any relevance?

Nodin

Manach wrote: »

Based mostly from my recollection of the book, "Full Circle: How the classic world came back to us" - by F. Mount. A reasonable read, especially on the section on how modern baths were re-popularised by a Corkman, Dr. Barter.
Another source was a book on "Law and life of Rome", by Crook.

The thing is that the "loose" arrangements largely continued up until the 16/1700's in various parts. Formal registered marriages with contracts etc was a thing primarily between noble/royal clans/houses/families. The state and church registered marriage with religous service for the ordinary person is really a thing of the late middle ages and reformation, as far as I understand it. Its covered somewhat in Katherine crawfords "European Sexualities".

rumour

Good observation, I think the answer is generally got to do with the law. As long as the state can step in and be the 'daddy' so to speak all's well. But i think increasingly in the western world we've over stepped the mark.
What happens when the government can't pay for it all anymore???

Second point of women earning more than men this is a curious one and perhaps more important. Ultimately the unit work of the woman is worth more than the man. Good news I guess for the 'sisters' but as a spin off men have become worthless so they do nothing. The women do all the work. Thats no going to make them rich rather it will make the nation poorer. As half of the productive units in the economy are redundant.

What will they do? It is a question government should start thinking about but the whole lot really I think will unravel as both points are really a construct of government social engineering for the last thirty years. Strangely in parallel the wealth of the western world in terms of capital is migrating towards countries where the men do work? This is just a curious coincidence from personal observation and not a particularly researched point.

Without the government what happens?

JustinDee

Oddjob wrote: »

The couples earning €30,000 each are paying the tax that is keeping this country afloat, they're paying the social welfare bills for their neighbour's rent allowance, and the four kids that they have no idea who the father is, and their schooling, and the made up jobs in Community employment schemes, and the carers allowance that people feel they need to look after their elderly parents,and the countless kids with add who need a few hundred quid a week in allowances

who do you think is paying for all this?

Paying tax should entitle someone to a children's allowance which is staggeringly not means-tested, seems to be what you are suggesting here. I'd say that this attitude is part of the problem with the Irish and the infrastructural headaches. Entitlement.
Your assumption on unmarried parents heading dysfunctional families or being on welfare is not only in typical poor taste but wholly unqualified.

Oddjob wrote: »

They're keeping the country going, what are you contributing?

I earn more than €30,000 per year and pay my dues so you can reel it in with your snide remark.

goose2005

woodoo wrote: »

In this country unwed mothers are more likely to be claiming One Parent Family Payments

Well, it would be a bit odd for married mothers to claim One Parent Family Payment, wouldn't it?