What they said ... `You don't bring your children into the world and expect the taxpayer to pay for it and be on welfare' Ms Pauline Hanson, leader of the One Nation Party
`We should not make the mistake of presuming we have booming welfare bills because of an increase in unwed, teenage girls seeking a living at taxpayers' expense' Mr Paul Gray, commentator for the Herald Sun
At a One Nation supporters meeting held in Hobart on July 15, 1998, the party leader, Ms Pauline Hanson, announced that her party, if elected to office, would `would support and look after the first child' born to a single mother.
In a press release made available on July 16 and still able to be read on One Nation's Internet home page, the following statement was made `Under our policy, assistance to unmarried mothers will not be extended beyond the first child. This will not affect existing recipients and [will] be announced with plenty of lead time before introduction so as not to impact those who already have a second or third, etc, child on the way.'
The policy has been presented as a means of discouraging women without permanent partners from having more than one child.
The policy has been condemned by both the current Government and by the Opposition's spokesperson for family services.
However, in February, 1998, it was suggested that the Federal Government was considering requiring sole parents, among others, to take up some form of employment as a condition of their continuing to receive benefits.
Background In 1972, the Whitlam Labor Government granted single mothers the same welfare payments as widows.
As of 1994, a sole mother with one child received a benefit equal to 35 per cent of average male earnings.
This sole parents pension remains available as long as there are children under 16 in the family. There is no `work test' attached to the benefit. The pension has traditionally appeared to give single mothers the option of looking after their children full-time, without the absolute necessity of seeking work.
Since the mid-1980s, however, there have been attempts to have absent fathers assume greater financial responsibility for their children and to encourage sole mothers into the workforce.
As of 1995 just over 50 per cent of sole mothers were in the workforce, either full- or part-time
The largest group receiving sole parent benefits are divorced women. As of 1995 also, never married mothers made up about 18 per cent of those women receiving sole parent benefits. Some of these women would have come from failed long-term de facto relationships, others from less enduring or formal relationships.
Teenage single parents accounted for only about three per cent of sole parent benefit recipients in 1995.
There appears to have been greater concern in the United States than in Australia about children being born to unmarried women and about sole supporting parent benefits encouraging single parenthood.
In Australia, in 1996, some 17 per cent of children were born to unmarried women. (In Victoria the 1996 figure was 22 per cent). In the United States the national figure in 1990 was 28 percent.
There are a number of Internet sources that deal with aspects of this issue.
* A press release, dated July 16, 1998, and titled Hanson - unmarried mothers' welfare costs can be found on One Nation's Home Page.
This details Ms Hanson's position on the question and elaborates One Nation's policy position.
The address of this particular press release is http://www.gwb.com.au/onenation/press/160798.html
* An excellent starting point for looking at the situation of sole mothers in Australia is Sole Mothers in Australia: Supporting Mothers to Seek Work
It is written by Marilyn McHugh, a research assistant at the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, and Jane Millar, Professor of Social Policy at the University of Bath, United Kingdom.
This 26 page document repays careful reading. It gives detailed statistics on the position of sole mothers in Australia and examines both their role in the workforce and the government policies and social attitudes that have affected this.
It can be found at http://www.sprc.unsw.edu.au/Papers/DP71.htm
* A comparison with the situation in the United States is possible by examining a paper written by Michael Tanner and David Kopel and published by the Independence Institute. It is titled Welfare Reform: Next Steps for Colorado.
This document, which argues in favour of reducing welfare support to single mothers, can be found at http://www.i2i.org/SuptDocs/IssuPprs/IsWelfeef.htm
It examines the apparently dramatic growth in births to unmarried women in the United States, claiming that by 1990 21 per cent of white births and 65.2 per cent of black births were to single women. It suggests that this trend has been fostered by welfare payments and has had damaging social consequences.
It argues that welfare recipients should be required to undertake some form of work and suggests a `family cap', that is, denying further welfare support to women who have additional children.
This is a lengthy document (30 pages), however, it contains much information and opinion.
* A briefer, but interesting, opposing argument can be found at http://econ161.berkeley.edu/OpEd/welfarereformisexpensive.html
It is titled Welfare Reform is Expensive and written by Brad De Long and David Levine. Brad De Long is the Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley.
This argument suggests that effective welfare spending, likely to make a long-term difference to recipients, requires higher levels of funding, not less.
Arguments suggesting single mothers should receive no welfare assistance beyond their first child
The first argument offered for restricting welfare payments to unmarried mothers with more than one child is that it is unreasonable to expect the Australian Government and Australian taxpayers to financially support children deliberately conceived outside marriage.
According to this line of argument, women should not go ahead with more than one pregnancy when they are without partners and have no independent means of supporting themselves or their children.
Such behaviour, it is argued, is irresponsible, as, it is claimed, people should not have children they are unable to support and then expect other people to carry the financial burden.
This position has been put by Wayne Bryant, a Democrat representative for the American state of New Jersey.
Mr Bryant has argued, `... If you are holding down a job and struggling to pay your taxes and make ends meet, your boss doesn't give you an automatic pay raise if you go to him and say, "Guess what? I'm pregnant!
Yet with single mothers, that is precisely what our government policies were doing ... it just wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all.'
A similar point was made by One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson.
Ms Hanson has claimed, `You don't bring your children into the world and expect the taxpayer to pay for it and be on welfare.'
Ms Hanson and others with similar views have suggested that some women may actually be having children so that they can continue to receive government support.
The second argument offered is that children are at risk of being harmed by being reared in one parent households and that the government should therefore attempt to discourage single parenthood.
Barry Maley, a senior fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies, has claimed, ` The evidence strongly suggests that a significant part of rising delinquency and crime rates is due to the failing socialisation skills of children who are often poorly supervised by stressed and isolated lone mothers.'
Barry Maley has also claimed, `Studies from all over the world show that, on average, children of sole parents fare less well in terms of mental health, educational achievement, socialisation and preparation for work.'
According to this line of argument, if children in one parent families are at greater risk than other children, the Government should be discouraging mothers without permanent partners from having more than one child.
Some of those who hold this view argue that removing welfare payments for later children would lead to fewer one parent families with two or more children.
It has been claimed, for example, that since the United States introduced legislation making it more difficult for single mothers to receive welfare payments for their children the birth rate among single mothers in some states has fallen and the number of single mothers marrying has increased.
Thirdly, it has been argued that supporting children born outside marriage encourages unstable family units and may also damage the children concerned.
This claim has been made by Ms Hanson in a press release on July 16, 1998.
Ms Hanson maintained, `It is particularly disturbing young girls or women go on to have more children from different fathers and then finish up in a de facto relationship with a man not related to any of the children. There is no way this is in the interests of the children, it is a serious breakdown of the family unit and it is a practice we must not support.'
Fourthly, it is argued that making single parent families dependent on government assistance robs them of the incentive to improve their situation.
According to this line of argument, while it is possible for single parent families to survive on government assistance, the women concerned are less likely either to improve their qualifications or to seek work.
Some critics maintain that welfare payments to single parents, especially payments that continue for the second and subsequent children, help to keep such sole parent families in a poverty trap.
Bettina Arndt, in an article published in The Age in February, 1998, has claimed, `Sole mothers are more likely to live in poverty and far less likely to be in the full-time workforce than other women.'
Ms Arndt warns, `many young Australian women are choosing to derail their prospects by having babies on their own or in de facto relationships.'
Arguments suggesting single mothers should receive welfare assistance beyond their first child
Those who argue that single mothers should continue to receive Government support beyond their first child, do so for a variety of reasons.
Firstly, it is claimed that there are far fewer single women with children drawing Government benefits than is popularly believed.
The Social Security Minister, Senator Jocelyn Newman, has stated that it is `factually incorrect' to claim single mothers are a welfare burden.
Relatedly, it has been claimed, the growth area in sole parent pension payments is not among young, unmarried mothers but among divorced women.
This point has been made by Herald Sun commentator, Paul Gray.
Mr Gray has claimed, `We should not make the mistake of presuming we have booming welfare bills because of an increase in unwed, teenage girls seeking a living at taxpayers' expense.
The big growth area in poor single parent families in recent years has been divorced women.'
Freelance writer, Helen Verlander, has claimed, `The birth rate among teenagers is now the lowest since the 1920s. Only 3 per cent of sole-parent pensioners are under 20 and less than 1 per cent are under 18.'
With regard to the taxpayer expense which each single parent represents, Ms Verlander has claimed that 80 per cent of sole parents are on the pension for less than five years, while 30 per cent receive the pension only for a matter of months.
Secondly it is claimed that relatively few single mothers have more than one child.
The shadow minister for family services, Ms Jenny Macklin, has claimed, `... on average, sole parents have fewer children than couple families.'
Australian Bureau of Statistic figures for 1995, indicate that 52 per cent of sole parent families had only one child, 33 per cent had two children and only 15 per cent had three or more children.
This compares with two parent families in which 34 per cent had one child, 41 per cent had two children and 25 per cent had three or more children.
A spokesperson for the Australian Federal Government has claimed that only a minority of single mothers continued to have children while on the sole parent pension.
A similar point has been made by Ms Alison McClelland, the deputy president of the Australian Council of Social Services.
Ms McClelland has claimed, `It is simply not true that sole parents are likely to have further children while on the pension.'
It is claimed that any sole parent pension recipient who has a new child more than nine months after going on the pension, automatically has her pension reviewed. In the 1995-6 financial year only one per cent of sole parents had their pensions reviewed for this reason.
Thirdly, it is claimed that limiting welfare payments is not an effective means of reducing the number of children born to single parents. There are two main reasons offered for this view.
It is argued that the vast majority of women do not have children as a means of accessing Government assistance. According to this point of view, the availability of welfare support is at best a secondary consideration for women, whether married or otherwise, who are deciding either to become pregnant or continue with a pregnancy.
Rather, it is claimed, many single mothers, including multiple single mothers, assume this role because of a lack of other options.
According to this point of view, if the objective is to reduce the number of young, single mothers, then the most effective way to do so is to increase the educational, job training and employment opportunities available to young women.
This point was put by Jan Pentland in a letter published in The Age on February 24, 1998.
Ms Pentland argued, `In Australia, it is the diminishing of life chances for a growing section of our community which is a major cause of many young women choosing or drifting into motherhood as a way to give their lives meaning.'
Finally, it is argued, to reduce the welfare support available to single, unpartnered women who have more than one child would create severe financial hardship for the children concerned.
Responding directly to Ms Hanson's proposal, Senator Jocelyn Newman asked, `Doe [Ms Hanson] just want to let the children starve by neglect, is that what she is saying?'
Further implications
Currently there is no political support, outside One Nation, for the proposal that sole supporting parent benefits should be limited to unmarried mothers' first children. The Howard Government has also given no clear policy outline to support media speculation in February, 1998, that sole parents, among others, could be required to work as a condition of their receiving Government benefits.
Despite this, in the current economic climate it is likely that some further restrictions or limitations may be placed on those receiving sole supporting parent benefits.
It is difficult to see how any such restrictions could be applied only to unmarried mothers. Thus, if there is a policy change, it is likely to affect all sole parents. Any policy shift will need to be carefully judged as sole parents form a significant, and growing, voting block.
Sources The Age
8/1/96 page 4 news item by Adele Horin, `Society harsh on teen mothers: report'
24/9/98 page 3 news item by Fergus Shiel, `Baby is a young girl's way to hope'
9/2/98 page 6 news item by Adrian Rollins, `Wefare change hint'
12/2/98 page 10 letter from Jan Pentland, `Poverty, youth and single mums'
21/2/98 page 6 (Saturday Extra) comment by Bettina Arndt, `And baby makes two'
24/2/98 page 11 comment by Helen Verlander, `Sole parents succeed, despite the lies and statistics'
25/2/98 page 17 comment by Barry Maley, `Single parents a social problem'
17/7/98 page 3 news item by Paul Daley and Andrew Darby, `Hanson hit for slur on solo mums'
17/7/98 page 3 news item by Fergus Shiel, `Dispatches from the home front'
25/7/98 page 3 (News Extra) analysis by Roger Franklin and Eli Greenblat, `Weaning single mums'
The Australian
23/4/98 page 3 news item by Michelle Gunn, `Divided families continue to grow'
The Herald Sun
9/2/98 page 5 news item by Clinton Porteous, `Sole parent work plan'
10/2/98 page 19 comment by Paul Gray, `A message to the young ones'
22/2/98 page 5 news item by David Wilson, `Out of wedlock births on rise'
24/2/98 page 18 comments by Mike Nahan and Michael Raper, `Should single parents have to work for their benefits?'
23/4/98 page 14 news item by Michelle Pountney, `One-parent families on the rise'
17/7/98 page 7 news item by Michelle Pountney, `Multiple mum hits Hanson'
The Internet
There are a number of Internet sources that deal with aspects of this issue.
* A press release, dated July 16, 1998, and titled Hanson - unmarried mothers' welfare costs can be found on One Nation's Home Page.
This details Ms Hanson's position on the question and elaborates One Nation's policy position.
The address of this particular press release is http://www.gwb.com.au/onenation/press/160798.html
* An excellent starting point for looking at the situation of sole mothers in Australia is Sole Mothers in Australia: Supporting Mothers to Seek Work
It is written by Marilyn McHugh, a research assistant at the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, and Jane Millar, Professor of Social Policy at the University of Bath, United Kingdom.
This 26 page document repays careful reading. It gives detailed statistics on the position of sole mothers in Australia and examines both their role in the workforce and the government policies and social attitudes that have affected this.
It can be found at http://www.sprc.unsw.edu.au/Papers/DP71.htm
* A comparison with the situation in the United States is possible by examining a paper written by Michael Tanner and David Kopel and published by the Independence Institute. It is titled Welfare Reform: Next Steps for Colorado.
This document, which argues in favour of reducing welfare support to single mothers, can be found at http://www.i2i.org/SuptDocs/IssuPprs/IsWelfRef.htm
It examines the apparently dramatic growth in births to unmarried women in the United States, claiming that by 1990 21 per cent of white births and 65.2 per cent of black births were to single women. It suggests that this trend has been fostered by welfare payments and has had damaging social consequences.
It argues that welfare recipients should be required to undertake some form of work and suggests a `family cap', that is denying further welfare support to women who have additional children.
This is a lengthy document (30 pages), however, it contains much information and opinion.
* A briefer, but interesting, opposing argument can be found at http://econ161.berkeley.edu/OpEd/welfarereformisexpensive.html
It is titled Welfare Reform is Expensive and written by Brad De Long and David Levine. Brad De Long is the Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley.
This argument suggests that effective welfare spending, likely to make a long-term difference to recipients, requires higher levels of funding, not less.
Back to previous page
