Has ONS underestimated family breakdown?
Census data released today tell us the exact numbers of married, cohabiting and lone parent families in England & Wales in 2021. My analysis shows that of the 7.0 million households with dependent children under the age of 18, 55.9% were headed by a married couple, 17.3% by a cohabiting couple, and 26.9% by a […]
HUNGARY for marriage
Read Harry’s May newsletter here Hungary’s marriage rates have soared 72% in five years since 2014. I interviewed Hungary’s families minister Katalin Novak to find out why. It’s not just financial incentives, she says. It’s public support for marriage. Also in our May newsletter The Sewell Report on racism quite rightly says we should not […]
Sewell Report highlights the damage caused by family breakdown, but doesn’t offer solutions
This article was first published by ConservativeHome Harry Benson is Research Director for the Marriage Foundation and co-author of What Mums Want (and Dads Need to Know). The recent report by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, released a month ago today, claims to be the first government-commissioned study on race that seriously engages with the family. […]
Lone parent families now at lowest level since 1990s
New figures from the Office for National Statistics present remarkable new evidence that stronger marriages have led to a dramatic reduction in family breakdown over the past decade. As ONS point out, Britain’s households are changing and there are more people cohabiting and more people living alone. However this bland statement of fact misses the […]
A really good news story to begin 2019
One of the issues we’ve tried to address at Marriage Foundation is to find out the scale of family breakdown. A few years back, we addressed this by analysing data from 2010 in a big national survey called Understanding Society. From this, we worked out that 45 per cent of all teens were not living […]
The government’s feeble policy on strengthening families
What is the government doing to strengthen families? Given that providing support for families that have broken down costs £51 billion per year at last count, that around 45 per cent of all teens are not living with both natural parents, and that Britain has the worst family instability in the entire developed world, a […]
Cost of family breakdown
Amicable or acrimonious, civilised or conflicted, cooperative or combative, whatever form it takes family breakdown was never the dream. Family always begins with an act of love. Family breakdown always ends in a failure of love. When love fails, there is always an emotional cost, whether to the parents or the children or those outside […]
Broken homes, broken children
The UK has the highest level of family instability in the entire developed world. Our epidemic levels of family breakdown were highlighted in a recent international analysis by the Social Trends Institute. Yet as a nation we seem to be completely unaware of what is happening to us. Our own analysis at Marriage Foundation confirmed that a quarter […]
Government under pressure to back marriage as cost of family breakdown hits £51 billion
PRESS RELEASE FOR UK MARRIAGE WEEK Date: 29 January 2018 Government under pressure to back marriage as cost of family breakdown hits £51 billion Family support minister Kit Malthouse will face questioning today by MPs (Tuesday 30th) over the Government’s failure to back marriage as the best structure for stable families. The debate in Parliament […]
Press Release – Family breakdown top cause of poor child mental health
PRESS RELEASE FROM MARRIAGE FOUNDATION Date: 17 November 2017 Family breakdown top cause of poor child mental health, new report finds Family breakdown is the biggest factor behind the UK’s child mental health crisis, a new Marriage Foundation report has found. More than a third of (36 per cent) children whose parents had split up […]