A record number of children in the UK, over three million, are being raised by lone parents, and an estimated 
one million of these have no meaningful contact with their father, according to a new report [1] by a leading think tank.
The report, Fractured Families: Why Stability Matters, published by the Centre for Social Justice, also found that there are an additional 130,000 lone parent families since 2006.
The report also criticises the Government response to the problem as “extremely weak” adding that “the outcomes for children and adults who suffer from family breakdown are often terrible, and the costs to society are huge”.
And the report adds that the public seem far more concerned about what the issue of family breakdown.
A poll carried out for the report shows that 89 per cent of people agree (52 per cent strongly agree) that ‘If we want to have any hope of mending our broken society, family and parenting is where we’ve got to start’.
And 81 per cent of people think that it is important for children to grow up living with both parents.
“It is time for politicians to acknowledge that family breakdown is an issue which matters to the vast majority of people in this country and take action to reverse it,” the report says.
The report warns that the problem is likely to worsen, with the continued increase in the number of people cohabiting.
“Parents who cohabit are three times more likely to have separated by the time their child is aged five than parents who are married,” the report says.
And it says that while national rates of teenage pregnancy have fallen, they remain high by international standards, with the UK ranked 3rd highest of the 29 most developed countries in terms of teenage births.
Meanwhile, in regional terms, the report says that in some of the most affected areas in the UK, the rates have risen, against the national trend.
It points out that there are significant personal and social costs to this situation. The report estimates that family breakdown currently costs the Government £46 billion per annum, with this set to rise to £49 billion by 2015, “more than the Government spends on the whole defence budget”.
Lone parenthood, the report also warns, is pathway into poverty. Lone-parent households, it says are 2.5 times more likely to be in poverty than couple families. It points out that in 2011, 41 per cent of children from lone-parent families were in households living on less than 60 per cent of median income, against 23 per cent of children from two-parent families.
The report recommends that the Government begin to address the issue by looking at the welfare system and removing couple penalties which incentivise parents to live apart. It also suggests making local authorities responsible for reducing family breakdown as part of their local child poverty strategies.