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Family Values in Straightened Times

Judy Corlyon, Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Summary of paper prepared for the European Consortium for Political Research Conference
Glasgow. 3rd-6th September 2014

Under the previous UK government a set of policies was in place designed to reduce child
poverty directly by giving parents more money through tax credits, higher tax thresholds and
increases in benefits. Even if this strategy was unlikely to achieve its long-term aim of
abolishing child poverty, it did succeed in lifting a substantial number of children out of
poverty. However, the current government is against so-called welfare handouts, believing
instead that families should work themselves out of poverty. Their strategic approach to
reducing child poverty involves tackling what they see as the root causes of poverty: a
dependence on welfare, an entrenched benefit dependency, a lack of opportunity,
aspiration and stability, suppressed incentives to work, and a cycle of deprivation too often
passed from one generation to another (A New Approach to Child Poverty: Tackling the
Causes of Disadvantage and Transforming Families Lives. DWP and DfE, 2011). The
underlying rationale is that if parents are in employment, and if they stay together, children
will be spared the negative outcomes associated with family poverty, parental separation,
lone parenting and re-partnering.
Leaving aside the fact that this model depends on a sufficient number of reasonably well-
paid jobs being available, the strategys chances of success are limited by the absence of
support which would help couples stay together and would enable both mothers and fathers
to have paid work if they wished.
The division of paid and unpaid work
Families with dependent children have higher poverty levels than those without, not only
because of the direct costs associated with having children but because looking after them
typically reduces the working time of at least one parent, thereby depressing household
income. How parents initially decide on their respective roles in childcare and labour market
participation can affect their present and future chances of being poor. The discrepancy
between lengthy maternity leave and brief, poorly paid paternity leave does not encourage
fathers to stay at home and care for children or mothers to continue in employment.
The other factor which obstructs parents (usually mothers) ability to engage or re-engage in
the labour market is the lack of childcare. The UK does not have a good track record on
childcare provision which is predominantly in the private sector, scarce, expensive and not
always of good quality.
Support for couple relationships
Strong and stable families are a touchstone of current family policy initiatives. Marriage is
the favoured option for achieving this witnessed by the introduction of transferable tax
allowances for married couples but marriage is not an anti-poverty strategy. Fewer couples
marry and more cohabit. But couples who cohabit tend to be poorer than those who marry
and the stress of living in poverty brings added risk of relationship breakdown, which in turn
can give rise to, or increase, family poverty.
Supporting all couple relationships, irrespective of their legal status, and at all stages would
bring better outcomes for all the family. This means not only couple counselling when
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difficulties do arise but also interventions which promote relationship-strengthening attitudes
and behaviours before difficulties appear. These have been shown to be effective in
overcoming problems, preventing relationships ending and better managing breakdowns
which do occur. Couples appreciate them (once they have overcome initial reluctance) and
they have considerable potential to save public money if the costs associated with
relationship breakdown and its consequences can be avoided. But more strenuous efforts
are needed to remove the stigma associated with accessing such interventions and to
ensure that they reach low-income families not only the traditionally help-seeking middle
classes.
Plugging the support gap
In two-parent families, both parents now often need to have paid employment to avoid in-
work poverty. Lone parents, other than those with very young children, are subject to
coercive labour market policies which risk being punitive when childcare is not available.
Even when it is available, childcare is expensive and does not necessarily fit with working
hours. Many grandmothers (and some grandfathers, though usually in conjunction with
grandmothers) play a vital role in enabling parents to overcome this problem and to enter or
remain in the labour market.
Because it is flexible and built on trust and shared values between the generations,
grandmothers childcare is a feature of all socio-economic groups. But it is most prevalent
for poorer families and those headed by a lone parent because it is free. However, it can
come at a financial cost to those grandmothers, often in the lower income brackets
themselves, who give up work or reduce their working hours to provide it. In many cases this
has the effect of spreading the burden of low income across the generations. But now that
the eligible age for receipt of the state retirement pension is being raised the number of
young and healthy grandmothers who are capable of taking on these childcare
responsibilities will be reduced. Without affordable, suitable and good quality childcare the
chances of both grandmothers and mothers in low-income families being in employment are
very slim.
It is not many years since most peoples retirement from work brought a seriously reduced
income and a degree of financial dependence on adult children. These days, the proportion
of pensioners in poverty has decreased to its lowest rate for almost 30 years while,
conversely, the number of people in a working family who are poor has risen to the point
where they account for more than half of all those living in poverty. With this financial
reversal, support in low-income families now most frequently goes downwards from parents
to adult children and grandchildren until parents reach an advanced age and need support.
Where state retirement pensions are set at a reasonably generous (or at least adequate)
level it not only reduces the risk of poverty in the older generation and avoids adult children
having to support older parents (thus depressing their own income) but, crucially, it also
promotes the downward transmission of resources in families and promotes reciprocal
arrangements when needed. So maintaining state pensions and pension credit at least at
their current level serves to lessen the degree of financial hardship suffered by many parents
and children by promoting a redistribution of resources, however low, within the wider family.
In summary, if work is the route out of poverty there needs to be better co-ordination of
employment policies, welfare benefits, childcare, and support for families. In the meantime, it
is often left to grandparents to take up the battle against child poverty.