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.
