The rich marry. The poor don't.
By Fraser Nelson in the Spectator
Corrollary: The rich are now more likely to marry each other than in the past, increasing socio-economic segregation.
Excerpts:
In 1964, some 93 per cent of children were born within marriage — the same as when records started in the 1850s. But that has now changed, utterly. Strip away immigrants (who tend to be more socially conservative) and almost half of British babies are born to unmarried parents. Cohabitation has not proved stable — today, the average British 15-year-old is more likely to have a smartphone in the pocket than a father in the house.
But even this fact disguises massive divergence in social class. The Office for National Statistics conducts surveys every three months, asking Brits about every aspect of their lives and dividing workers into seven social categories. At the top comes ‘higher managerial’ — the likes of company directors, military officers and university lecturers. At the bottom come the ‘routine occupations’ such as cleaners, builders and waiters.
In 2001, when the figures start, with those in the top category 24 per cent more likely to marry than those at the bottom. That figure now stands at 48 per cent.
This inequality of marriage ought to concern the left. There has been far more family breakdown over the last four decades, but it’s the poorest who are being most affected. There are no absolutes in this argument — successful families do come in all shapes and sizes — but figures do show a broad trend. Fewer than one in ten married parents have split by the time a child is five, but a third of unmarried parents do so. As Tony Blair said, ‘A strong society cannot be morally neutral about the family.’
David Cameron agreed, once. He said he was passionately in favour of marriage, and spoke up for it at the last general election. But the idea of a tax break unnerved the more socially liberal George Osborne, who has refused to implement it until the last four weeks of a five-year parliament. Nick Clegg is hotly against the whole idea, saying politicians should not make ‘moral judgments’. So even talking about the family, far less promoting it, is difficult for a reviled political class terrified of being seen to lecture voters.
The result is a creeping social segregation which is not being discussed, far less addressed. The marriage agenda has fallen foul of a new cross-party consensus: that the toughest questions in politics are, nowadays, best avoided.
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