More families driven into poverty

A GROWING number of Irish families are being pushed into poverty due to an overdependence on benefits and the excessive cost of childcare, a major international report has found.

Doing Better for Families — the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) first report on family wellbeing — also expresses concern that austerity packages introduced in response to the global and domestic financial and banking crisis will almost certainly see worsening levels of poverty among families.

The report warns, in particular, that childcare costs, which can account for more than 40% of a family budget, compared to lows of 20% in other countries, are acting as a “major barrier” to employment in Ireland, particularly for low-income single parents.

The report also warns that poverty risks have shifted over the past 20 years towards families with children and says that, in Ireland, 16.3% of children now live in poverty — well above the OECD average of 12.7%.

The report also reveals that, in Ireland, almost one-in-four children (23.4%) under 17 live with a lone parent, second only to the US, where 25% of young people live with a single parent. The OECD average is about 15%.

Children’s wellbeing, the report concludes, is linked to family wellbeing and when families flourish, children flourish.

Crucial to reducing child poverty, it suggests, is making parents less dependent on benefits and on this point it warns that Ireland is one of few OECD countries that has not made income support conditional on finding work once the youngest child begins school.

The report points out, however, that sole parents on income support can only be expected to work if suitable, reasonably priced childcare supports are available.

On the global economic crisis the report notes that in some countries — Ireland being one — rising government deficits and debt obligations has led to austerity packages and budget cuts which were directly affecting family policy.

The OECD report also revealed an increasingly non-traditional sense of family — with more cohabitation, people marrying at older ages and more marriages ending in divorce.

The report also notes that women are better educated than before and are overtaking men in the process, with more than one-third of women under-35 having completed a university education, compared with just over 20% 20 years ago.