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Despite marriage being the best protector against child poverty it has become politically unfashionable – some argue insensitive – to express such a view says Lindsay Mitchell.
Her views are expressed a report Child Poverty and Family Structure that she has written for Family First, published Monday.
Mitchell says child poverty is consistently blamed on unemployment, low wages, high housing costs and inadequate social security benefits.
Little attention has been given to family structure.
“But if there is to be any political will to solve child poverty the issue has to be confronted.”
Mitchell says rapidly changing family structure has contributed significantly to increasing income inequality.
She says it is not the intention of her paper to explore at length why marriage has fallen out of favour with most social science academics and policy-makers.
“The aim has been to show that marriage provides the best economic environment for
raising children,” she says.
Mitchell argues that “The evidence is overwhelming and incontrovertible.”
Who is Lindsay Mitchell?
Her blogsite says she has been researching and commenting on welfare since 2001.
Many of her articles have been published in mainstream media and she has appeared on radio,tv and before select committees discussing issues relating to welfare.
She is also an artist who works under commission and exhibits at Wellington, New Zealand, galleries.
The report is endorsed by Dr Michael Bassset a former Labour minister of health, Dr Stuart Birks, a Fellow of the Law and Economics Association of New Zealand, and Dr Don Brash, former Governor of the Reserve Bank and former leader of the National Party and the Act party.
Media Response
- Family First research ‘high school level’ statistics, academic says (Stuff.co.nz)
- Family First blames child poverty on divorce and single parents (NZ Herald)
- Lobby group Family First blames unmarried couples for child poverty (Stuff.co.nz)
Source
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- New report - Child poverty: don't mention family structure
- Read the full report
- Read the executive summmary
- We must help out the dysfunctional but what about accountability?
News category: New Zealand, Top Story.
