Bishop Robert Forsyth has affirmed findings presented by UK researcher Dr Samantha Callan that strong marriages are key to reversing poverty while cohabitation is linked to increased social breakdown.
Dr Callan was speaking on marriage and family as the key to social stability and reversing poverty at the Australian Christian Lobby's National Conference in Canberra at the weekend, which was attended by 165 people.
"Samantha Callan is a fine intelligent social analyst on the role of families, and a very impressive Christian advocate," Bishop Forsyth says.
“Her approach is from an objective social science perspective " not ideology " and shows a number of indications that marriage is good for children and good for society."
Dr Callan is a Christian and co-author of Breakthrough Britain, a report commissioned by the UK's Conservative Party which explores how the costs of social breakdown in the UK might be eliminated.
The report has indicated that family breakdown is one of five key "pathways to poverty' in the UK, along with serious personal debt, drug and alcohol addiction, failed education, and worklessness and dependency.
"Family life in Britain is changing such that adults and children today are increasingly faced with the challenges of dysfunctional, fractured, or fatherless families," Dr Callan has written in Debate magazine.
"This is especially the case in the least advantaged sections of society but these trends also profoundly affect people across the socioeconomic spectrum. Despite these demographic changes there has been a lack of serious debate concerning their causes, effects and likely remedies."
How family breakdown leads to poverty
During her visit to Australia, Dr Callan has relayed some of the statistics brought out in the Breakthrough Britain report, which indicate there are strong links between family breakdown and poverty.
"By a child's fifth birthday less than 8 per cent of married parents have split up compared to almost 43 per cent of cohabiting parents," she has said.
The report has also found: "If you have experienced family breakdown, you are 75 per cent more likely to fail at school, 70 per cent more likely to be a drug addict and 50 per cent more likely to have alcohol problems."
Further, “three-quarters of family breakdown affecting young children now involves unmarried parents”.
However the report also reveals that there are “perverse disincentives” in the British fiscal system for couples to stay together, as the tax credits system ‘penalises’ low-income couples who decide to marry.
“This situation has even led to fraud and recent Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) figures have shown that there are more lone parents claiming benefits in this country than there are lone parents,” Conservative Party MP and Social Policy Justice Group chairman Iain Duncan Smith says in the report’s executive summary.
At the same time, Dr Callan indicated that there is an "enduring appeal for permanence in relationships across the social spectrum" and that marriage can be supported without alienating single-parent families.
"Supporting an institution that can be a source of stability need not be incompatible with supporting single parenthood which is largely the result of relationship breakdown," she says.
Bishop Forsyth has applauded Dr Callan's work as giving a fresh and well-informed perspective on an issue of great importance to Australian society.
“She is a Christian herself but is coming at it from a political engagement with social studies to look at the role of marriage in social justice, avoiding the tired polarisation between the two,” he says.
“It's also about saying we don't have to sit back and watch: Christians ought to think about this in their own marriages and in public policy.”
Federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull, who spoke on family, freedom and Australian politics at the conference, also applauded Dr Callan’s presentation, and affirmed his own “great passion” for marriage, families and demographic issues.
“There is no question that our nation, any nation, is stronger if more people are married " and when I say married I mean formally married. And that doesn't mean previously married, that means formally as in legally married " if they're legally married and if more children are brought up by a father and a mother,” he said.
Other speakers at the conference included former NSW Premier Bob Carr, who spoke on ‘what’s wrong with a Charter of Rights’, and visiting American evangelical, the Rev Richard Cizik, who gave a speech about climate change and Christian responsibility.
