Nearly one in two children born today in Britain will see their family suffer a breakdown by the time they reach the age of 16, according to a new analysis of figures.
A new report, carried out jointly by the Bristol Community Family Trust (BCFT) and the Centre for Social Justice, has highlighted the fact that 48 per cent of couples with children will break up before their first child turns 16.
The study drew on figures from the Office for National Statistics and the Millennium Cohort Study and took account of differing levels of education and income. It records that growing numbers of couples are choosing to start a family without committing themselves to marriage first and that unmarried couples were more likely to separate.
The findings also suggest that family breakdown costs the British taxpayer £20 billion a year.
“Of every £7 spent on family breakdown among young families (by the taxpayer), £1 is spent on divorce, £4 is spent on unmarried dual registered parents who separate and £2 is spent on sole registered parents.
“In other words, the problem is not divorce. While marriage accounts for 54 per cent of births, the failure of marriages - i.e. divorce - accounts for only 20 per cent of break-ups and 14 per cent of the costs of family breakdown, among all families with children under five,” the report says.
In February 2010, a study by the charity Relationship Foundation found that broken families are costing the taxpayer more than £40 billion a year in benefits. According to the charity, costs have increased by £5 billion during 2009, the equivalent of an extra £194 per taxpayer, and were expected to rise rapidly in 2010.
Previous studies have found children from broken homes are nine times more likely to commit a crime and twice as likely to live in poverty.
In August 2009, the then Shadow Home Secretary blamed the devaluing of marriage for producing a generation of children with no concept of right and wrong. Chris Grayling said the lack of a family-focused upbringing made many young children grow up as the “antithesis of model citizens”.
"Family breakdown has reached a scale where many young people grow up with no vestige of stability in their lives, and no concept of a family-focused upbringing,” he said at the time.
Sources
Centre for Social Justice
Daily Mail
Daily Telegraph
Family Law
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