Does trend of kids before marriage contribute to child poverty?

[purpleneon]

I feel like these days more and more people have kids without being married; it doesn't seem to be as important for either men or women.

This is fair enough, but particularly from reading Mumsnet threads, it seems like it is mainly women that get screwed when relationships with an unmarried partner breaks down & they have kids , especially when they're SAHP who haven't paid into their pension or worked for ages. This seems to be due to the huge difference of dividing assets of married people on divorce v. unmarried people on break ups.

Find it frustrating that people feel "judged" if you comment on how lifestyle choices contribute to outcome (which is not the intention), but this trend seems to be contributing to child poverty which is sad & it's the kids that lose out.

People also seem to expect the government to step in when the problem also stems from us as a society choosing to have children in more "unstable" settings.

How can unmarried people (esp. the lower earning partner) with kids be protected more when relationships break down?

@Sakurami it doesn't sound like your children are in poverty though. Isn't that what this discussion is about?

You sound like you're in a better position than a 19yo with the same awful husband, but no skills & no work experience, but maybe I'm jumping to conclusions.

"Yes I could have gotten a nanny or an au pair etc but that would have meant never seeing them and having someone else bring them up."

If you earn enough for these to be options, sounds like you made a lifestyle choice? A valid one at that, but still a lifestyle choice for your kids' benefit, unlike many min wage workers who don't even have that choice. Also don't think anyone would say working dads or mums haven't brought up their kids, just because they are working full time.

What we need to do is to stop blaming women, and start blaming the men who fuck off and leave them with kids and no money

I don’t think it’s that black and white whatsoever.

Not all men want just EOW access and would want far more time with their children. Many also pay child support.

Both parents have a financial responsibility to provide for their children not just men. That’s a very old fashioned view. Childcare is more abundant than ever.

@Sakurami: I said that having children later in life makes it more likely that you will be able to support yourself and your children financially. Not that every older mother would always be able to do so in every circumstance.

I stand by that, but obviously the age of the mother and her earning power are not the only considerations. There are many other factors to take into account including the number and ages of the children, whether the mother has family support (such as free childcare from grandparents) and the cost of housing in the area.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

What we need to do is to stop blaming women, and start blaming the men who fuck off and leave them with kids and no money

I don’t think it’s that black and white whatsoever.

Not all men want just EOW access and would want far more time with their children. Many also pay child support.

Both parents have a financial responsibility to provide for their children not just men. That’s a very old fashioned view. Childcare is more abundant than ever.

Yeah what is it with the 43% of single mothers in poverty that are just too lazy and irresponsible to use the abundance of childcare available to them. If only they just got a job or were married, eh? It must take a certain type of character to be a single mother when as a group they have the highest poverty rate amongst working age adults.

(I say mother although those stats are lone parents - but given over 90% of lone parents are women - why is that? - then I use the term single mother given it’s the women being judged anyway.)

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

What we need to do is to stop blaming women, and start blaming the men who fuck off and leave them with kids and no money

I don’t think it’s that black and white whatsoever.

Not all men want just EOW access and would want far more time with their children. Many also pay child support.

Both parents have a financial responsibility to provide for their children not just men. That’s a very old fashioned view. Childcare is more abundant than ever.

There's a lot of truth in this. It's hard to get more than EOW access if you were a full time working Dad and partner stay at home Mom.

Plenty of comments about Dad's financially stepping up, which I understand will be the case in some situations, but its far wider than that. It's actually making a Father's role important even if the parents have separated. In this age of equality many views when it comes to child access really are in the dark ages and it's still very common.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

What we need to do is to stop blaming women, and start blaming the men who fuck off and leave them with kids and no money

I don’t think it’s that black and white whatsoever.

Not all men want just EOW access and would want far more time with their children. Many also pay child support.

Both parents have a financial responsibility to provide for their children not just men. That’s a very old fashioned view. Childcare is more abundant than ever.

Childcare is more abundant than ever? Perhaps it is, but when the hourly rate for childcare is more than the NMW, then it's about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

In a word - no.

If a relationship isn’t stable, it’s not stable! Marriage isn’t the ultimate seal of forever or makes it any more likely to last.

As a social worker I see a lot of poverty and it is not the institution of marriage that is the problem. It’s the system and is obviously political.

Marriage isn’t the ultimate seal of forever or makes it any more likely to last.

Well yes people have posted links above showing that unmarried couples with children are a lot more likely to break up. But that's not what this thread is about. It's about what happens after the divorce or break up.
Married couple - marital property, no matter who paid for what. Unmarried couple where one has stayed home or worked part time due to childcare, or one has paid the mortgage while the other paid the bills and food etc - and the second person will walk away with nothing and has no claim to any assets the first has accumulated.

You can find plenty of studies that show the reverse correlation between marriage before parenthood and childhood poverty. There is also a growing body of research showing the economic class divide in marriage which is rapidly becoming an institution of the well-off and well-educated.

Some advocacy groups will take this as evidence that we should be promoting marriage. It really isn’t that simple though. You have to ask why are the well-off continuing to marry and why do they do it later in life? I personally subscribe to the theory that this is part of the vetting process for potential partners. Long dating relationships, cohabitation, engagements, marriage and then finally procreation allows both parties ample time to evaluate a partner as a potential co-parent. If the goal of a well-earning or well-educated couple is to raise children who will be able to join that socioeconomic group, it is essential to find a partner who can assist in that goal. Obviously not all partnerships are successful, but we know that statistically this model does perform better.

So rather than advocating marriage as a way to stop childhood poverty, I believe it would be more effective to try to introduce a cultural shift into more critically evaluating potential parenting partners.

It seems to repeat as well - have one kid with a man you hardly know, break up, have another kid with another man you hardly know. This is not a choice that is conducive to emotional or financial security.

What I've noticed - which is only in relation to my acquaintances, so compleltely anecdotal - this tends to happen where the person has had an unstable family set up, often including an errant parent and is often following the same pattern their own parents have modeled. It's a never ending cycle of abandonment, poverty and poor self esteem.

You have to ask why are the well-off continuing to marry and why do they do it later in life? I personally subscribe to the theory that this is part of the vetting process for potential partners. Long dating relationships, cohabitation, engagements, marriage and then finally procreation allows both parties ample time to evaluate a partner as a potential co-parent. If the goal of a well-earning or well-educated couple is to raise children who will be able to join that socioeconomic group, it is essential to find a partner who can assist in that goal. Obviously not all partnerships are successful, but we know that statistically this model does perform better.

Completely agree with this, and I think what it often boils down to is self esteem, aspirations and perceived options in life. People from a stable background are more likely to invest themselves, while people with more volatile home lives are more likely to look to romantic relationships and creating their own family unit for fulfilment and validation.

I don't think the cost of marriage is the prohibitive part - it can be all in £100ish (depending on which part of the country you live in) if you just do the legal bit. Feels like people just don't place much importance on it or see the point

Marriage has become more about the big party and less about the legal contract, in most peoples eyes. Very few would be happy to have a £100 registry office wedding - they want a big white wedding. They can't afford a big wedding, so they say they can't afford to get married. Unfortunately the wedding industry is huge and has caused this notion that you can only get married if you have 30k to blow on a big do.

On the assertion that many dads want more than EOW + one evening, I see and hear about many that do, but they want their child after 6pm, preferably with homework already done.
When required to do 4pm school pick up and 30 mins maths homework followed by school run next morning, they invariably bleat 'I can't, what about work' and are incapable of grasping that they need to flex work hours to put their child first.
Many children will only be better off if men accept their child comes BEFORE work, the pub, the car, football practice, Le Mans, and the latest girlfriend. And that will never happen.
Reducing child poverty is inextricably linked to improving educational attainment among women, and structural support like enforcing maternity protection laws and subsidising childcare.

Custody has to run in full 24 hour periods with men who have weekdays doing pickups, drop offs, covering sick days, paying for school meals, providing clothing and supplies. That is what the maintenance calculators assume is happening, that the parent is actually covering the full day.