Unemployed lone parents with children over seven will be required to look for a job as part of a radical shake-up of the welfare system, Peter Hain, the work and pensions secretary, announced last Thursday. The government’s policies have the linked aims of achieving full employment and helping to eradicate child poverty. It is often argued that the best way out of poverty is through paid employment. These recent announcements are part of a package aimed at raising the employment rate from 74.5% to 80%. Hain claims that these plans will see an increase of up to 100,000 in the number of lone parents in work, which could lift around 70,000 children out of poverty.
It is right that the parents of older children should seek employment where possible. Children’s expectations and aspirations are shaped by their experiences of their parents. Parenting is of course work in itself. However, the belief that parents have a responsibility to enter paid work, once the child is in school and out of the house, is also important and the parent’s attitude is passed down from one generation to another. Furthermore, work – although all of us have questioned it at various times! – really is good for us. The government backed up their proposals with findings that 80% of people agreed that suitable work is good for people’s mental and physical health.
Yet measures to get lone parents working need to be introduced as part of a wider package. Child poverty campaigners have argued that the policies are “based on a fantasy of childcare that does not exist” and “family-friendly employers that are not there”. Perhaps this is too pessimistic, but Hain needs to convince us that comprehensive childcare will be available and affordable where necessary and that business will buy into the government’s vision of flexible working. Without these measures it is all too easy to dismiss this policy as a way of saving (and making) the Treasury coffers a few pounds. Nor will these measures do enough to end child poverty on their own: that still needs radical and concerted effort from government.
Another part of the government’s proposals includes the use of more personalised, specialist help for jobseekers who struggle to find work after 12 months. This should be praised as part of a wider move away from a ‘one approach suits all’ benefit system to a more tailored response, which helps individuals in ways that are best for them and their circumstances. Of course, difficult questions remain about what constitutes ‘a suitable job’, and a liberal society should be wary of unnecessary compulsion in the move from benefits to paid work.
Last, the proposals include a commitment to look further at the idea of a single system of benefits for all people below pension age. This idea could greatly increase the efficiency and transparency of benefit system. It could also end the crude categories that benefit is currently delivered in, which can be stigmatizing and inflexible.
The government’s proposals should be cautiously welcomed, but they need to be introduced as part of a wider package. Employment can be empowering, giving individuals the confidence, connections and money to get on in life. But for lone parents this is tempered by concerns about caring for their children. Government and employers need to work together to ensure that a package is in place to support lone parents in the move into sustainable and fulfilling employment, whilst their children and cared for in an affordable and high quality manner.