Single parents on benefits will be forced to look for work when their youngest child reaches the age of three, or face losing their state hand-outs, under new welfare laws.
At present, parents – including lone mothers and fathers – are entitled to receive benefits without conditions being attached until their children start school aged five.
Might we see the gap between children shrink from 5 to 3 years perhaps?
Off topic but how is the new ‘Two kids only on child welfare’ rule going to apply to half brothers/sisters and/or step brothers/sisters? If you have two kids and are claiming for them as a single parent, and you shack up with someone else who has a kid, will you both be able to claim for your own children? What about if you have 2 kids from a previous relationship, then have another with a new partner? You have more than the limit, but the partner doesn’t. I assume they can’t make it ‘2 kids per birth mother’ as that would most likely fall foul of the equality laws. Given the random couplings that result in children in the underclasses (and beyond) one wonders whether the new rule will actually have much effect. Most of the large families have multiple fathers, so the new rule may not prevent them all being claimed for anyway.
As someone around here keeps banging on 🙂 “Incentives matter”.
Jim above though is right about the interplay with the new “first two children only” rule. Interesting times ahead.
It would be much simpler just to have a culling policy.
I assumed the rule would be two children per household.
Ah, but how is ‘household’ to be defined..?
I’m reminded of the first vignette of the Sophia Loren film Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Loren commits a crime, but can’t go to prison as long as she’s pregnant or nursing, so she keeps getting pregnant by her husband. Eventually, he just can’t keep her knocked up.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4096739.ece
average age gap Currently 3-4 years according to the times