Is Adoption replacing Single Parenthood?

As single parent figures increase in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the wisom of having a generation brought up by “lone parents” is increasingly being questioned by the British and Irish governments. With one child in five now born out of wedlock the British government wishes to curb single parent benefit.

However, there is a paradox at the moment. On the one hand there is a lot of publicity being given to stories from the fifties and the sixties of forced adoptions and scape-goating of single mothers on the other hand.

Unmarried mothers are associated in popular myth with an underclass destruction of family values and a drain on the state.

In Britain welfare cuts and simplified adoption procedures are being used to encourage single mothers to place their children for adoption. The financial burden of bringing up the children will pass from the state to couples queuing up to adopt. Adoption is to be promoted as a first, rather than a last resort. Eion Ryan, Irish member of parliament, sees the situation differently: “Most teenage pregnancies are heavily supported by the girl’s family and are not a burden on the state. What is happening is that there is a large number of single mothers in flat complexes who have no chance of getting employment at all. That’s why I am saying it is a trap. It’s a cycle, and it is something that is going to have to be tackled. Yes, they’re getting a flat, unmarried allowances and what knots, but they do not have any access to improve their lot.

We need to put more resources into primary education if in the long term you’re going to break that cycle”.

The surest solution lies in providing the chance of economic independence to young women, generally, whether married or not. Current unemployment levels, however, make the achievement of that ideal unlikely.

The rest of the solution lies in education to effect the cultural change.

THE STATISTICS

According to the Irish Central Statistics Office figures, 9 450 babies were born to unmarried mothers in 1994, of which 2 218 were born to mothers under the age of 20, a drop of over 200 on the previous year. Sixty-seven of these were to mothers who were 15 or under.

Over 4 000 babies were born to women ages 25 to 29. Figures for unmarried mothers having babies drop dramatically after 30 years.

Thus 235 of unmarried births are to teenage girls, most of them 18 or 19, with a further 42% to young women under the age of 25. This contrasts sharply with the age profile of married mothers. Studies suggest strongly that age rather than employment status is the key problem for unmarried mothers.

Implicit in the “underclass” theory is the idea that the structure of benefits acts as an incentive to unmarried mothers to have further children. However, a study by a Social Welfare official, Tony O’ Grady in 1991 titled Married to the State? Casts serious doubt on this stereotype.

His and other studies show that social class and the support available, are more significant causes of problems than is unmarried status as such. Mothers living alone, without the support of either family or partner, are more likely to run into trouble.

In 1994, 2 156 women claimed Unmarried Mothers’ Allowance. The number of unmarried mothers claiming what is now called the Lone Parents’ Allowance, which goes to separate spouses, the spouses of prisoners, and the widowed as well, was 19000 by 1990, and just under 34 000 last year.

The percentage of babies born outside marriage has risen steadily and now stands at 18% having almost doubled in the last decade.

(Irish Independent, 23 April, 1996)

Current status not known.