Why has 'family change', and in particular the increase in the numbers of single parents, become an issue of concern for social policy? Should it be?

The more and more prominent single parent family is somewhat more complex than the previously mentioned changes, especially when considering the concern and problems that it entails.  Firstly, as Jonathan Bradshaw clearly states in The Student’s Companion to Social Policy, chapter IV.5, there are differences between lone-parent families, they should not be classed as one group in society.  The least frequent type of single parent family is that headed by the father of the child (less than 10 per cent).  Amongst the ones headed by women, there are the families in which the mother is alone due to divorce, separation or death, which is the largest group. Following this is the group in which the mother had never been married. This group is growing the most rapidly. It also has differences within it, however: women who had been cohabiting but are now alone, and those who had always lived alone, without the father. 

There are several problems that arise from single parent families, and which have become a concern to social policy.  

Economically, single parent families today tend to be very dependent on benefits from the state. This is because single parents have the responsibility for bringing up their children, so most often cannot work.  Because they do not work, they are unable to afford any ‘outside’ support. Statistics show that “just over half of lone parent families are dependent on Income Support and over 80 per cent are supported by Income Support, Housing Benefit or Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC)”.  Additionally, the increase in single parent families means that there is a bigger demand for housing, as Bradshaw states: “it has been estimated that an extra 800,000 dwellings are needed at any one time as a result of lone parenthood”.  Moreover, the housing supplied is usually of poorer quality than that owned by cohabiting or married couples, meaning that becoming a lone-parent involves a social degeneration for the parent and child.  It has also been shown that poverty is predominant amongst lone parent families, being a consequence of the dependency on benefits and their difficulty to combine employment and childcare. 

A final area of concern associated with lone parent families is that of the children involved.  There has been much investigation on this subject, in which the researchers are trying to determine whether or not being brought up in a lone parent family is damaging for children.  

When conducting this research, it is extremely important to consider the differences between lone parent families, and to take into account the circumstances surrounding the child. For example, whether the child grew up with two parents and then experienced a separation, or whether he or she was born into a lone parent family has to be bared in mind.  The social class and wealth of the family also has an influence on the child’s outcome.

Studies on this issue found that indeed, children from lone parent families tend to have more educational and behavioral problems. Nevertheless, when further examined, it was established that these problems are more likely to be associated with the pre-separation conditions that the children lived in.  For example, if the parents argued and fought, their bad relationship would have negative effects on the child.  Similarly, if after separation or divorce the adults cannot get along, the child is prone to reacting badly to it.  Furthermore, the financial difficulty that lone parent families face also contributes to the child’s ill being.

It appears to be clear, then, why ‘family change’ has become such a concern for social policy.  It seems important that it should be a concern, as it is social policy’s role to “redistribute resources amongst its citizens so as to achieve a welfare objective” (Baldock, J. et al (1999) Social Policy).

Lone parents’ dependency on benefits should be of concern to social policy because it is in no way advantageous for either the family or the state.  It usually means that the family lives in poorer conditions than it would otherwise, and it means that the state has more expenditure.  As well as this, the amount of housing needed for lone parent families means that it is not available for people who might be more needy of it.

With regards to the effect that lone parenthood has on children, the concern seems justified.  It has been shown that the circumstances of living with only one parent, including the financial circumstances that this involves, leads to children doing less well at school, or even dropping out early. This in turn signifies that later in life these children will have reduced opportunity to obtain higher standard, well-paid jobs, and are more likely to be unemployed than a child having successfully completed secondary education.

New labour has taken a step towards trying to solve the problems that lone parent families experience. Referred to as ‘Making Work Pay’, it is a scheme that aims to get non-working parents into employment, by reducing their benefits and offering incentives to those willing to take paid work.  The strategy also seeks to offer “financial support for childcare” and it wants to reduce dependency on benefits by “minimising welfare expenditures, maximising the employment rate, improving the socioeconomic status of women, or improving conditions for their children” (Gray, A. (2001) ‘Making work pay: Devising the best strategy for lone parents in Britain’, Journal of Social Policy, 30, 189-207).

Having looked at these aspects of family change with regards to social policy, we can see why they have become a concern to it.  Until about thirty years ago, the “welfare state was founded on the premise of demographic stability and economic certainty” (K. Kiernan, ‘Family Change: Issues and Implications’, in David, Miriam E., ed., (1998) The Fragmenting Family: does it matter?).  The fact that this is so rapidly changing, and the results that this change is having have become a concern for social policy in that it has to find new ways of dealing with the change, and accommodating the families involved.  This in turn means that as the family changes, social policy itself will have to adapt in order to find the best ways of dealing with the problems and needs associated with this change.

REFERENCES

Baldock, J. et al (1999) Social Policy, Oxford: OUP, pp 120-126

Bradshaw, Jonathan (2003) ‘Lone Parents’, in Alcock, P. et al, The Student’s Companion to Social Policy, Oxford: Blackwell: Part IV, Chapter 5;

Burghes, Louie (1994) Lone Parenthood and family disruption: the outcomes for children, London:    Family Policy Studies Centre, Chapter 5;

David, Miriam E., ed., (1998) The Fragmenting Family: does it matter? London: IEA. Chapter by Kathleen Kiernan;

Gray, A. (2001) ‘Making work pay: Devising the best strategy for lone parents in Britain’, Journal of Social Policy, 30, 189-2079

Harding, Lorraine Fox (1996) Family, State and Social Policy, Macmillan, Ch. 2, pp. 52-75

Wasoff, Fran and Dey, Ian (2000) Family Policy, Chapter 3

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