How handouts tempt single mothers
Last updated at 00:24 28 August 2006
The EU-wide study showed a close correlation between the number of single mothers and they level of benefits.
Of 14 European countries in the study, the UK had by far the highest proportion of young single mother households - 8 per cent. They received an average of £3,546 a year each in benefits, the second-largest handout.
By contrast, only 0.9 per cent of households in Spain were run by single mothers - and their annual handouts totalled just £38.
The study suggests women are effectively subsidised to become lone parents and that high
benefits undermine the family unit.
Libertad Gonzalez, a Barcelona academic who carried out the research, said the concept of strong family networks was built into the benefits systems in southern European countries. She said: "The correlation is quite striking. Countries with the highest incidence of single mothers are also those with more generous benefit, and vice versa. Spain, Greece and Portugal, with small numbers of single mothers, have lower benefit levels."
Only Denmark fails to fit the pattern. It pays out higher benefits even than Britain, at £5,116 a year, but single mothers make up only 2.9 per cent of households.
The study supports the arguments of family campaigners that the state is encouraging young women to have children alone.
Critics blame the Labour Government's obsession with meanstesting benefits rather than encouraging strong family networks.
Former Labour welfare minister Frank Field said: "I've always believed in a causal link between benefits and the number of single mothers. We've got to change so that people don't become single mothers. For some, they become single mothers by accident, while for others it's a deliberate choice."
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that single-mother families in Britain, rose from one per cent of households with children in 1971 to 11 per cent in 2004.
Researchers found that a benefit increase of £675 a year was matched by a rise in single mothers of two per cent.
Anastasia de Waal of the Rightwing think-tank Civitas said: "In Britain we've witnessed the worst possible scenario - disenfranchised young women taking up what appears to be a viable 'choice' in subsidised lone parenthood. The effect is to perpetuate a cycle of deprivation."
But Tory spokesman Philip Hammond said: "We have to be careful with this claim of a causal link. When we are giving benefit to the single mother, we are not giving it to her, it's to the child. if you want to end child poverty, then you have to give benefit."
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