Thursday, July 13, 2006

Logistics of the welfare state

Some interesting statistics from the US, relevant here as many 'western' countries are following the same trends.

Longer life expectancy, delayed marriage and childbearing, and increased childlessness add up to a longer life without kids, says Barbara Dafoe Whitehead in a new report released by the nonpartisan National Marriage Project at Rutgers University.

Looking through U.S. Census data as well as cultural and social research, Whitehead found:

* In 1970, 73.6 percent of women ages 25-29 had at least 1 minor child at home; 30 years later, only 48.7 percent did.
* In 1990, the most common household type was married couples with children. Now, single-parent, childless households are the most prevalent.
* Today, more women in their 40s are childless, the report says. Only 1 in 10 were childless in 1976; while in 2004, it was about 1 in 5.



It's ironic that welfare states in developed countries have actually reduced the number of children produced yet the life-blood of welfare states is an adequate supply of budding taxpayers. There is no way that current demographic trends will allow our welfare state to continue as we know it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So the radical lesbian feminists we encountered at Uni in the late 60s early 70s have won their

Anonymous said...

As welfare is one of the main topics on your blog, I hope you won't mind my going off topic, on this post, to talk about the decreasing benefit numbers. According to a recent Herald article http://subs.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=1039012 "Overall since 1999 the combined number of people receiving unemployment, sickness, invalid and domestic purposes benefits (DPB) had fallen from 372,000 to 280,000."
Good news. I find it's hard to talk about the welfare system without coming across as heartless mercenary. David Benson-Pope claims Labour's policies are supportive and not punitive policies and that they are working. Maybe, but along with the welfare system needs to be the unequivocal message that getting a benefit is not a lifestyle choice.

Gloira

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Trouble is Gloria, it's the life-stylers who haven't moved into work. And they are still feeding into the system as teenage newcomers guaranteeing a future caseload that will be extremely hard to shift.