The Tories have done a lot of research on this, and their conclusion is that marriage tends to result in better outcomes for the children than in non-married couples.
Ultimately, it's an economic policy - better outcomes for children = more productive workers = increase in aggregate supply. No different to banging on about eduction and training.
Tories - research? thats a load of bollox. Firstly because it simply is not true - wealth and love from parents are the important issues not marital status.
You say they have done the research - lets see it then. You won't be able to as it simply does not exist
It is different, tron. Funding training just gives people training. It doesn't tell them how to live their lives.
What about fixing the underlying problems resulting in kids in difficult situations? Not being married is not one of them, is it?
As TJ says, in fact.
The Tories have done a lot of research on this, and their conclusion is that marriage tends to result in better outcomes for the children than in non-married couples.
Bollocks, it's cheap moralising and playing to the Daily Mail 'family values' crowd.
Also, re the Maggie quote - it's not just taken in isolation is it - it's remembered in the context of everything her government did - promotion of greed and selfishness and lack of responsibility as being a good thing.
IDS's Centre for Social Justice has published quite a few papers on the subject. Sorry to burst your bubble.
lets see them then. Real research that shows marriage gives the best outcomes. Not policy paper that just make statements.
it would go against everything I have read about this which shows that marital status is irrelevant - two parents is good, parents in work is good, rich parents is good, parents that nurture children is good, marital status is irrelevant.
Tron - you made the assertion - lets see the evidence - and not just bald statements.
IDS's Centre for Social Justice has published quite a few papers on the subject.
Did they actually suggest that giving people a little bit of cash for being married was going to make any difference?
I was also wondering, isn't this going to affect, say - a married woman who's husband has been cheating on her then buggers off with another woman. Really seems fair to then hit her with extra taxes doesn't it? It's nonsense.
With this type of thing it's very difficult to establish the causal link anyway - maybe it's just that the type of people who are more likely to be good parents are also more likely to stick together - marriage doesn't necessarily have any relevance at all.
It would have been funnier if he'd likened himself to a hamburger
lets see them then. Real research that shows marriage gives the best outcomes. Not policy paper that just make statements.
Don't be ridiculous. What you're effectively asking me to do is go and spend a day reading papers, and condense that into a couple of sentences for you.
On the other hand, the CSJ have been and done a load of research, and this is their end result. If you think they're lying, making it up, or whatever, then you think that. However, I would like to point out that Labour have a spectacular record on evidence based policy - they talk about it, commission the research, and then disregard it. As an example, see the ODPM's report on Surestart and Gordon Brown's constant banging on about what a glorious success it's been.
I was also wondering, isn't this going to affect, say - a married woman who's husband has been cheating on her then buggers off with another woman. Really seems fair to then hit her with extra taxes doesn't it? It's nonsense.
It's more a case that low income couples are penalised for staying together, and are driven apart by the tax and benefits system. You are effectively removing a penalty on couples, not penalising single parents.
I know that you are wrong tron - so lets see your evidence for your ridiculous statements or we know you are taklking thru your hat again.
You could simply link to the papers. But you won't 'cos you can't 'cos they don't exist
Like when you said the UK debt was the highest in the EU - which it simply isn't.
You could simply link to the papers. But you won't 'cos you can't 'cos they don't exist
And you would simply pipe up with another stalling tactic, perhaps "I don't have access to academic journals, could you upload the PDFs somewhere for my perusal?". I'd be here for the rest of time.
As for debt:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/may/05/uk-budget-deficit-worse-than-greece
From that well known reactionary right wing Murdoch owned rag, the Guardian...
It's more a case that low income couples are penalised for staying together, and are driven apart by the tax and benefits system. You are effectively removing a penalty on couples, not penalising single parents.
Seriously where is the evidence for that?
Tron - you know you are wrong on marriage- just admit it,
Seriously where is the evidence for that?
It's in the papers on marriage on the CSJ website. Couples recieve considerably less than singles, so there's a huge incentive to not live together, or to commit benefit fraud.
I voted Lib Dem do I win a prize?
Let s see th links to these papers then- come on Tron - put up or shut up
Don't know what all the fuss is about regarding Thatcher's quote - she was pretty much voicing an understanding of citizenship that's been going the rounds since John Locke:
the locus of human well-being is the pursuit of one’s own interests. where these cohere with the interests of others, pursuit of common interest leads to the development of communities.
You either agree with the position or you don't, but it was pretty clear that the dominant view of the 'citizen' in the social policy of the time was in that mould. A quick read of any social policy textbooks relating to the period with confirm that.
My bigger concern at the time, and I'm yet to be convinced that the Conservatives have moved from this position, was the kind of dogma typified by Bruce Anderson in the 90s:
“We are in the grip of the post-modern vagabond. We have expensively constructed slums full of layabouts and sluts whose progeny are two-legged beasts. We cannot cure this by family, religion and self-help. So we will have to rely on oppression”
It concerns me because it appeals to a wide constituency who have no direct experience of working in peripheral estates and so don't know any better. It's a simplistic response to a complex set of social problems which wasn't effective in Victorian times when we had the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor, and won't be any more effective this time round. The last time round, the 'cure' actually exacerbated the problems, and all the Labour party's investment has only just begun to change things.
tron - I just read that paper - it's full of moralising and massive logical fallacies.
Eg
Marriage leads to better mental health for children. Children of lone parents are more than twice as likely to suffer mental health problems than children of married couples, and those of co-habiting couples are 75 per cent more likely to have mental health problems than their peers with married parents.
That's like saying that 60% of people who develop lung cancer are smokers, therefore lung cancer causes smoking.
Ta mogrim - I just read one of the papers.
Lots of assertions without evidence and nothing that I would recognise as research.
clear use of couples and marrige as synonyms - now i ( nor anyone else sensible) am not arguing that children are best brought up by single parents - two parents are best. However marital status is irrelevant to this.
As the graph above shows, the proportion of people choosing to form couples decreases
slowly and steadily as the earnings of the primary earner decrease. However, for earnings
below £15,000 p.a. there is a marked drop in couple formation which is out of kilter with the
general trend. Those with the lowest incomes – and therefore those to whom modest
changes in income back a big difference – are choosing not to live together as couples.
Classic bit of bollox. This is simply an assertion without evidence. Yes it is true that lower income people are likly to be single - but there are many reasons for this. so the fact is right - the analysis is simply rubbish. Its could as well be that couples are richer than singles because they have two earners!
And nothing there about marriage - only couples.
Let s see th links to these papers then- come on Tron - put up or shut up
Right TJ, here's how you do it. Go to google.com, search for the Centre for Social Justice, and navigate to their papers on marriage. If you think I'm going to waste my time looking up academic papers and the likes for you, you're wrong.
tron - mogrim gave the link - I read one of the papers and it is rubbish - as in my post above. No research, no evidence, muddy thinking. No proof of what you assert at all.
that low income couples are penalised for staying together, and are driven apart by the tax and benefits system.
couples are richer than singles because they have two earners!
And nothing there about marriage - only couples.
That's the issue. It's fairly easy to see that having two parents has a lot of advantages in practical terms, earning potential being one of them. But marriage? That's just traditionalism.
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