Families

Families are strange creatures. We all know that you can’t choose your relatives, and large families can be somewhat overwhelming but the family seems to be undergoing something of a change.

Patterns of behaviour by people in the UK aged between 16 and 40 have shown distinct changes in the past thirty years. In the late seventies, getting married was still considered to be advantageous, the proportion of single parent units to two-parent families was comparatively small, and most people chose to have 1.4 children - on average, that is before anyone starts wondering whether there were some out-of-control experiments taking place at fertility clinics. They also had those children in their late twenties and most folk stayed together for a significant number of years. The statistics are interesting:

• the divorce rate in 2007 was at its lowest level since 1981...but

• One in five men and women divorcing in 2007 had a previous marriage ending in divorce. This proportion has doubled in 27 years: in 1980 one in ten men and women divorcing had a previous marriage ending in divorce. Sixty-nine per cent of divorces were to couples where the marriage was the first for both parties.

So the divorce rate is falling but more people are having them. Now, is it possible that the divorce rate is falling because of a couple of behavioural changes? The first - and arguably the most worrying - is that very young teenage girls are now happy to have a child without worrying about having a partner. Presumably, these same girls will expect to be housed, financed, cosseted and fed, largely, if not entirely, at the tax payers’ expense. The problems start, however, when we see the standards of behaviour these single mothers transmit to their children. A culture of expectation that the state will provide is inevitable, and dangerous for society.

But what about the professional women, the high achievers, the extremely well-qualified? It seems they’re doing almost the opposite; that group are actively deferring childbirth until their early forties, if at all, preferring instead to concentrate on their careers. They also often eschew marriage as an out-moded convention based on a largely discredited religious philosophy.

What this means is that we have a growing population of people who expect to receive from the state, without necessarily having to give anything back, and a shrinking population of people who work hard, succeed and achieve.

Add to this the fact that we’re going to see some mighty severe cuts in just about every aspect of government and social provision, and it looks as though those single-parent families are going to need their own families to help out. Then, perhaps, the old family concept might enjoy a renaissance.