A latest report released by the Marriage Foundation has called for urgent policy changes by the federal government to deal with what it describes as a “calamitous” marriage gap of 51 per cent between wealthy and low-income couples.
The report underscores the drastic decline in marriage rates amongst low-income couples. Since 1972, marriage rates have dropped by 78 per cent amongst men and 73 per cent amongst women.
Marriage stays common amongst wealthier families, widening the divide between socio-economic groups.
“What has been almost completely missed and ignored in discussion of the trend away from marriage … is the presence of a wedding gap between wealthy and poor,” the report states.
“Quite simply, marriage continues to be the norm among the many richest families [but] is increasingly the exception among the many poorest families.”
According to data first documented by the think tank in 2015, 87% of oldsters with children under five in the very best income quintile were married, in contrast to only 24% in the bottom income quintile.
The report, using figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), reveals that this gap has significantly broadened over the past decade, partly resulting from economic pressures and social disruptions attributable to COVID-19 restrictions.
By 2022, the wedding gap continued to expand, with 71% of newborns in high-earning families having married parents, in comparison with only 35% of newborns in low-earning families being born to married parents.
The report placed the blame on successive governments for failing to support young couples who need to marry by considering the link between marriage and greater financial security, higher child development outcomes, and reduced reliance on welfare support.
It pointed to flaws within the welfare system, particularly the “couple penalty”, which it identifies because the “biggest barrier to marriage among the many poorest, a social justice problem whose existence is barely acknowledged by politicians.”
The Marriage Foundation is a think tank founded by High Court judge, Sir Paul Coleridge, to advertise marriage and reduce the number of individuals – around 500,000 annually – entangled within the family justice system.
Marriage Foundation’s Research Director, Harry Benson, remarked that the wedding gap is “calamitous” for the kids of low-income couples and “more broadly for society which must pick up the pieces of family breakdown”.
“Marriage acts as a buffer to poverty, while children who grow up with each parents within the household, do higher at college and usually have higher mental health,” he stated.
Ahead of the Spring Statement, one in every of the first recommendations of the report is to discard the present “paltry” £250 married couples’ allowance and redirect the funds to offer a £3,000 taxable child profit for married moms with a primary child under three.
Additionally, the report calls for a review of tax and advantages policies that currently penalise couples who marry or live together, arguing that these policies discourage marriage among the many poorest families and result in family breakdown.
It also urges senior politicians to publicly support marriage, saying that “the deafening silence on marriage is strange given how very essential marriage is for thus many politicians in their very own private lives”.
Sir Paul accused politicians of ignoring the difficulty out of fear of being seen as judgmental.
“All political parties stand accused of failing to understand the nettle in the case of advocating for marriage and its advantages. So far as increasing family stability is anxious, they’re well-known and uncontroversial,” he commented.
“If any party desires to be taken seriously in the case of confronting the scourge of family breakdown and its fall out, they need to be unequivocal about publicly supporting marriage and making it easier for the less well-off to tie the knot. It shouldn’t be easy, but it surely is crucial.”
Similarly, Benson stated, “There are some people, who prophesied that marriage as an establishment is finished, that it doesn’t matter and wrongly claim that that is evidenced by the UK’s declining marriage rate … The real scandal here is that support for marriage stays consistent amongst all income groups and the overwhelming majority (nearly 9 in 10) of young people aspire to marry, but only one in five of the very poorest couples will ever tie the knot.
“This has got to alter; it’s an issue of social justice and why we urge the Chancellor to take immediate and meaningful motion to assist mitigate the pernicious effects of the couple penalty in order that more couples can enjoy the advantages of marriage.”
