Changes in the family structures

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Allen stated that there is “Nothing set about the family as such” (Allen et al, 2001:20). Indeed this may be an important fact about families within the British society, ever since the dawn of the industrialisation. The pressures and demands on family forms due to the continuing effects of demographic change have ensured that family structures are continually evolving and advancing. This can be witnessed in vast social reconstructions in terms of the widowed, divorcees, separations and so forth (Allen et al 2001). The focus of this essay will be to explore and study the issue on “why the so-called decline of the family is so important to social policy makers” with relevance to lone parents.

Changes in the family structures can have many effects and outcomes. Such reconstructions can pose many new challenges to social policy makers. The most increased in the changes is the occurrence of lone parents. One of the reasons on the dramatic escalate of lone parents is partially to do with the rise of divorce. The beginning of the year 1970, it seen over half of million lone parents and this dramatically increased by 1980 when the year saw over 1 million lone parents (Allen et al 2001). This was largely due to the Divorce Act 1969, which enforced new grounds for the entitlement of divorce as well as “helping to redefine peoples perceptions of what was acceptable within marriage”  (Allen et al, 2001: 24).

The rapid increase in the number of families with children headed by lone parents has evidentially expressed a number of negative issues such as, the breakdown of a traditional nuclear family, cause of a culture of dependency, the reason for youth crime and poor educational attainment (Baldock et al 1999). Such rapid changes introduces the welfare state with significant challenges and it can be observed to how such institutions adapt or fail to adapt to demographic change.

According to the Office for National Statistics 1998 (cited in Baldock et al 1999:182) the term lone parents is defined as “A lone parent consists of a lone parent living with his or her never-married dependant children, provided these children have no children of their own.”  However definitions will vary according to purpose such as, benefit assessment, taxation, research surveys and so on (Baldock et al 1999).  

At present only 10% of men head lone parent families. Lone fathers tend to be older and have older children and are more likely to be in employment than women. The largest group heading lone families are lone mothers who were previously married. They tend to be older themselves and have older children than other lone mother families (Alcock et al 2003). There is also a rapid increase in lone mothers who are single and who have never married, there are two distinct groups that differentiate amongst them (Alcock et al 2003).  

There are those lone mothers who have never married or had a living relationship with the child’s father. 47% of these lone mother tend to be teenagers when having their children thus they are young themselves and have young children. The other half of lone single mothers are those who have been married and are the victims of marriage breakdown resulting in divorce. The mothers and the children have lived with the father and both mother and children tend to be older (Alcock 2003). These differences in the characteristics of lone parents are the two main routes into the world of lone parenthood.

Being a lone parent is the focus of social concern rather than a private matter and there are three main reasons to this. Lone parenthood is seen as a poverty problem, dependency problem and a social problem (Baldock et al 1999).

One of the problems is poverty. Lone parents live in a poverty environment and spend most of their life in this hardship. Parents bringing up their children sacrifice not spending on themselves but giving their children the best life as possible. Even though in a financial difficulty the parent does not want the child to suffer the consequences of being a lone parent. Lone parents and their children make up a significant proportion of the poor. The year 1992-1993 seen that 58% of lone parents were living in poverty (Glennerster 2000)

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Although lone parents face a problem of poverty, lone parenthood almost invariably results in turning to the dependency of state welfare.  Over a third of lone parents are dependent on income support and the other 80% are dependent by income support, housing benefit or family credit (Glennerster 2000). Lone parenthood is costing a vast amount of public expenditure in respects of social security spending. The year 1989-1990 seen £4 billion in benefit expenditures on lone parents alone, however this dramatically increased when the year 1995-1996 the expenditures rose to almost £10 billion (Glennerster 2000). It is clearly visible from ...

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