How marriage helps combat poverty

 

Family stability should be recognised as a core component of any child poverty strategy, according to a new report from the UK Centre for Social Justice. The reason? Stable relationships provide a platform for economic progress.

Governments usually approach child poverty as a problem of insufficient income, the report by Dr Harry Benson argues. The standard responses are higher benefits, better childcare, employment programmes and greater investment in education. All of these may have a role, but the report, titled The Stability Advantage: Marriage, Family Breakdown and Poverty in the UK, argues that one crucial factor is too often ignored: whether a child’s parents remain together.

The report draws on the Millennium Cohort Study, following more than 3,000 couples through the first fourteen years of parenthood. Its most interesting finding is that married parents in the poorest fifth of households were less likely to separate than unmarried parents in the richest fifth, even after the research controlled for a wide range of social, economic and demographic differences.

This challenges the common argument that married couples are more stable only because they tend to be richer, older or better educated. Those selection effects certainly matter, but the report maintains that they do not explain most of the difference.

Earlier studies, it argues, often excluded respondents with missing information. Because missing data were especially common among unmarried couples and those who later separated, this approach may have understated instability among unmarried parents. When the full sample is analysed, marriage remained strongly associated with a lower risk of separation across income groups.

The economic consequences are substantial. Parents who stayed together throughout the fourteen-year period under examination were twice as likely to move up the income distribution as those who separated. Those who broke up were twice as likely to move down. Among families who began in the lowest income group, 53 pc of intact couples moved upwards, compared with only 29 pc of those who separated.

This should not surprise us. Couples who remain together can share their earnings, housing and childcare costs, support one another through unemployment or illness. Separation divides resources and often creates additional housing and childcare costs. Family breakdown is therefore not merely a consequence of poverty; it can be one of its causes.

Marriage matters because it turns commitment into something explicit and public. Through marriage, couples align their long-term intentions, accept responsibilities before family and community, and separation becomes more difficult legally, socially and psychologically. The wedding ceremony is not simply a celebration of affection. It is a solemn promise that encourages spouses to hold themselves accountable to one another.

Public policy should stop pretending that all family structures produce identical outcomes, the report argues. It recommends that the tax and social welfare system should not penalise low-income couples for marrying because it can push them off benefits. For example, if a lone mother on benefits marries a man earning say, £20,000, she would lose her welfare payment and is therefore better off not marrying him.

The report also proposes financial support during the first three years of a child’s life, when families face intense pressures and relationships are particularly vulnerable.

The main message of the report is that strengthening marriage helps in numerous ways, including financially. Any child-poverty strategy that ignores family stability addresses the symptoms while neglecting one of the most important causes.

Another report confirms a rise in unplanned childlessness

 

In many parts of the world today, people are having few children than they want. A new report from Canada confirms this phenomenon. A report from The Iona Institute last week predicts that one in four members of Gen Z will never have a child. An Amarach poll we commissioned finds that average person still wants two or three children and almost no-one wants none.

The Canadian report is from the pro-family think tank, Cardus.

Canada’s fertility rate has fallen to a historic low of 1.25 children per woman, even lower than Ireland’s rate of 1.5. But this is not simply the result of people freely choosing not to have children. When Canadian women are asked about their ideal family size, they say two children on average. Men desire slightly larger families again, with an ideal family size of 2.13 children. This means the fertility crisis is also a crisis of frustrated hopes.

Similarly, in the UK, a report by the Centre for Social Justice, Baby Bust, says that nine in ten young British women still hope to have children, but that the total childlessness rate could rise as high as 30 pc under current fertility patterns. England’s fertility rate is now below 1.5. Again, the issue is not simply that people no longer want children. It is that many are not achieving the family life they hoped for.

The Canadian report also shows significant differences by religion. Non-religious Canadian women tend to desire 1.55 children, while non-religious men desire 1.83. By contrast, Protestant Christian women desire 2.91 children, and Protestant men 2.96. Catholics and Orthodox Christians are also above the non-religious average, with women desiring 2.16 children and men 2.24. Those belonging to other religious traditions report above-average desired family sizes too: 2.28 children for women and 2.23 for men.

An Iona report from last year called ‘Shall the Religious Inherit Ireland?’ also notes that religious people in Ireland want more children than the non-religious. The figures are three children versus two.

Women with conservative views are also more likely to want larger families. Ethnic background matters as well. Canadians of East Asian ancestry have appreciably lower desired family sizes. By contrast, Canadians of African or Middle Eastern ancestry tend to desire more children than the average, at 2.76 and 2.63 children respectively.

Some of the findings challenge common assumptions. Better educated women tend to want more children, according to the survey. This is important because public debate often assumes that education naturally leads women to reject larger families. The reality is more complex.

The obstacles are also revealing. More than half of Canadian women under 35 who would ideally like a bigger family report some kind of financial barrier, but money is not the only issue. Men are more likely than women to identify financial worries, while women report a wider range of concerns connected with childcare, support, and the practical burden of raising children.

This points to a broader lesson. If countries such as Canada, Ireland and Britain want to address falling fertility, they must begin by taking seriously what people themselves say they want and why their desires to have a larger family are not fulfilled.

L'appuntamento della carità

Rieti, 12-2-’49

Caro Benigno,

come ho già scritto alla Direzione, io mi considero un Suo nemico; ciononostante La leggo sempre perché il neretto mi piace più del normale corpo 6 (attenzione, Direttore, e attenzione, proto! Ecco spiegato il successo di questi appuntamenti: nota di Benigno).

Ho aderito, in via del tutto eccezionale, a inviare una giornata del mio stipendio al Suo amico di Giano, ed ecco i conti: stipendio ed accessori L. 31.800, presenza L. 1.580; diviso per quattro persone, diviso per trentuno giorni = L. 270.

Per la mia diocesi, in questa settimana, l’on. Bernardinetti ha svolto un’interpellanza alla Camera per dimostrare che il regno della miseria è anche tra noi, più che altrove.

«Quando voi sacerdoti vi fate promotori di una maggiore giustizia sociale?».

Perché moglie e marito, senza figli, deputati, prendono L. 2.700 ecc. giornaliere? Perché tanta gente si diverte sempre ed altri non hanno neppure il pane? In Italia si balla e si gioca, e perché costoro non si professano come si deve a beneficio di opere assistenziali nell’ambito della provincia? Perché moglie e marito vivono alla stessa greppia e senza figli?

I poveri li abbiamo dappertutto e non sempre li vogliamo vedere, perché deve provvedere lo Stato; ciò può essere anche giusto. Ed allora, più tasse sui divertimenti e sulle cose voluttuarie e lasciare in pace la povera gente che mangia pane e sale, seppure.

Molti dicono che devono pagare i ricchi, ma purtroppo chi si diverte non sono sempre i ricchi, bensì giovani disoccupati ed altre categorie a cui piace vivere alla giornata, senza pensieri.

La giustizia sociale non c’è; nessun popolo, nessun governo l’ha mai attuata, non dico in pieno, ma almeno in parte. I poveri si comprendono, ma tanti che stanno bene non intendono queste cose.

Colgo l’occasione per salutarLa, assicurandoLa che ben difficilmente Le potrò dare ascolto un’altra volta.

CARLO ROSSI

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Ho pubblicato per intero la lettera di Carlo Rossi, che ringrazio anche a nome del mio amico di Giano, parroco Sabato M. Corvino:

1° Per smentire una volta per tutte la voce ormai troppo diffusa che Benigno vesta l’abito sacerdotale. Magari, amici lettori, avessi la fortuna di vivere nella «grazia» perenne e fossi monsignore per giunta! Sono invece un borghesuccio che s’arrabatta a strappare la vita e un cristianuccio che s’arrampica, a fronte china, sui Tabernacoli per farsi perdonare i talenti spesi male...

2° Perché tutti prendano con le molle le contraddizioni che... distinguono il programma sociale enunciato dal Rossi, burbero benefico che fa la carità con una punta di rabbietta la quale minaccia di distruggere le buone intenzioni. Non vi sembra, infatti, che se la prenda coi mulini a vento, come Sancio, buon’anima?

3° Perché, dicendosi mio nemico, tutti sappiano che io lo considero fratello, come coloro i quali si credono — e non sono — nemici del clima in cui vive e respira il Corpo mistico di Cristo, ossia tutti i battezzati nel nome del Padre, del Figliuolo e dello Spirito Santo.

Quanto a promuovere una maggiore giustizia sociale, i sacerdoti la stanno predicando da... duemila anni in nome del Divino Maestro, che ammoniva:

«È più facile per un cammello entrare nella cruna d’un ago che ad un ricco nel Regno dei Cieli».

Del resto è il Rossi stesso a riconoscere che «chi si diverte non sono sempre i ricchi, ma gente cui piace vivere alla giornata». E qui il nostro burbero benefico ha toccato, forse, la piaga.

La giustizia sociale non c’è e non ci sarà... (e le rivoluzioni non faranno che spargere sangue innocente), finché l’umanità, cioè tutti gli uomini indistintamente, non attueranno gli insegnamenti di Chi si fece Uomo per redimerci.

E qui il discorso si fa lungo.

È significativo che i poveri — come dice Rossi — si comprendono. Perché? Lo dirò un’altra volta; ma è già evidente che senza dolore non c’è Carità.

Benigno

17 luglio 1949