U.K. has most lone parents of any major European nation

Britain has more single mothers than any other major country in Europe, an official analysis has revealed.

One in 15 homes in this country are headed by lone women with children, with only tiny Estonia having a higher percentage.

Yet the single parents in Britain outnumber the entire population of the Baltic state.
The comparison of the state of the family in 27 countries showed this country also has fewer couple families than most EU nations.

The analysis, by the EU’s statistical arm Eurostat, comes after Britain’s tax and benefit system was revealed to be more heavily biased against traditional families than any other in the Western world.

Married couples with children who live on one earner’s average income in Britain pay 73 per cent of the tax that a single person without children has to pay. This is a burden nearly 40 per cent higher than is typical in the developed world and 20 per cent higher than the average EU tax bill.

Critics of the ‘couple penalty’ in Britain yesterday pointed to the EU figures as powerful evidence of the effects of this country’s heavy taxation of couples.

The breakdown said that in 2009, 6.7 per cent of the households in Britain were led by single women with children under 15, or older children still at school or college.

The countries with the nearest rate of single motherhood to  Britain were Ireland and the three Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The only country with a higher lone motherhood rate than Britain’s was Estonia, with a population of 1.3million, fewer than the 1.6million lone mothers in Britain.

   

In this country just under one in five homes, 19.6 per cent, is occupied by couples with children.

The percentage is lower only in Latvia and Bulgaria, and in three countries with ageing populations: Germany, Austria and Belgium.

David Cameron pledged before the General Election to reduce the ‘couple penalty’ and bring in tax breaks for married couples.

Both ambitions appear to have gone on to the back burner, and the Chancellor’s tax plans mean over the next two years couples with children will pay an even heavier share of the nation’s tax.

One sign of the impact of taxation on couples is the estimate by the Office for National Statistics that more than two million people regard themselves as one of a couple but live apart from their partner.

The effect of the tax system is that nine out of ten couples face a tax and benefit penalty worth more than £100 a week for living together. In other words, they would be over £100 better off if they lived apart.

Key ministers accept that children brought up by couples, especially married couples, are likely to do better than children in single-parent homes.

Evidence shows children of lone mothers are less likely to do well at school, and more likely to suffer poor health and fall into crime or early pregnancy as adults.

Don Draper, tax analyst for the charity CARE which published last month’s figures on the tax burden on traditional families, said: ‘The EU figures come as no surprise given the way the UK tax and benefit system is biased against two-parent families. This is going to worsen over the next three years.’

Steve Doughty

Comments

[single parent benefits]

Ya. too agree with this statement. In UK the divorce rate is approximately 60% and really this statistics is terrible one. Not only this the teenage pregnancy is also very high there that leads to the maximum no. of lone parents as compared to the other European nations.
Jenny

[Reserve Currency]

The econonmy needs to make these jobs for a while before the recovery can be certain.