The War Between the State and the Family : How Government Divides and Impoverishes

"Patricia Morgan's core assumption is that the family is an extremely effective vehicle for raising the welfare of its members. If this is correct it is quite possible that the state can best support the family by doing very little - by not taxing the family heavily and by minimizing the subsidization of those who choose alternatives to financially self-sustaining family life." "At one level, Morgan argues, the family can be seen as a unit within which there occurs enormous transfer of economic resources between husband and wife. parents and children, and, on a wider scale, within extended families. The family is the most important vehicle of welfare and the welfare vehicle of first resort. Within the family many services are provided by family members to each other, rarely for direct personal benefit. Basic economic analysis, Morgan asserts, suggests that the family could be seriously undermined if the state provided significant support for dependents who are not brought up within self-sustaining family units, and if it also provided services, such as childcare, that are generally provided within families. This work shows that this is precisely what has happened in the last twenty-five years." "The driving force of significantly reduced family formation is not economic but social. Perhaps social changes have led to a desire by individuals to bring up children in family circumstances different from those of a generation or two ago, but evidence does not support this hypothesis. Rather, tax and benefit systems seem to be important determinants of family structure worldwide. Patricia Morgan does not simply analyze the problem, she also suggests policy solutions. The author argues that divorce laws should be reformed to ensure that those who make commitments are held financially responsible. The author's argument is compelling because it is backed up with strong evidence and is argued from an unemotional economic perspective - individuals within families are rational agents who respond to incentives."--book jacket It has become fashionable for politicians to extol the virtues of the family. Yet, in this economic analysis of family policy, Patricia Morgan shows how politicians have been at war with the family over at least the last 25 years. The family is an important vehicle for welfare provision and for income transfers to the most needy and dependent members of society. Yet the state, by providing extensive welfare provision, by financing child-care services and by taxing families on an ever-greater proportion of their income, provides strong incentives for families to break up rather than to hold together, and to form family relationships that are hidden from the authorities. Government policy has crowded out voluntary welfare within families and caused otherwise law-abiding people to commit fraud on a very extensive scale. The author begins by showing the economic benefit of self-sustaining families. She then shows how government policy has increasingly taken over the role of the family in supporting children. It is clear from the evidence presented here that government policy has caused the breakdown of families: policy has not simply responded to autonomous changes in social behaviour. Patricia Morgan then examines changes to divorce laws and to tax and benefit systems that should help reverse the trend and once again make the family the building block of a welfare society. Shows how tax and benefits policy has undermined family life in Britain and encouraged fraud and dishonesty. This title also shows how the tax and benefits systems are particularly harsh on single-earner couples who have to earn over GBP50,000 before there is no loss from declaring their relationship to the authorities. In this study, Patricia Morgan shows how tax and benefits policy has undermined family life in Britain and encouraged fraud and dishonesty. It explains how the tax and benefits system encourages couples not to marry and, if they are living together, to lie to the authorities about their family situation. 1. Household fragmentation and the decline of marriage 2. economic and social consequences of atomisation 3. enemies of collaboration 4. Cause and effect 5. Rhetoric and reality 6. More of the same or a new policy approach?