Written By: - Date published: 9:25 pm, April 16th, 2008 - 41 comments
Categories: slippery -
Tags: slippery
You may have seen the announcement that there are fewer than 20,000 now getting the unemployment benefit, down from 160,000 odd when Labour became government. And now there’s news that there’s been a drop of 13,000 of people receiving the DBP, since the introduction of Working for Families in 2004.
Parenting and paid work is a challenge at the best of times. Working and being a sole parent even more so. So it’s good to see effort being rewarded, and that a case managment approach is paying off for both recipients and WINZ. Will National keep the WINZ staff who are making a difference in their desire to streamline the public service? And what ARE National going to do about Working for Families? It must surely be time to start indicating where they stand on such an important policy area which is being distributed to three out of four families in NZ.
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James, My suggestion was temporary assistance. Unfortunately women with a secure income and state-funded home frequently attract the sort of men who will abuse them because he doesn’t have to support her. Are you aware that as long as a female can prove that her ‘partner’ is abusing her mentally or physically – ie the relationship is ‘not after the nature of a marriage’- she can continue to receive welfare. So much for the DPB helping women escape abusive relationships. In a desperate irony it now pays the worst sort of partner to hang around.
Ancient Geek, The average time spent on the DPB is near to 7 years. The figure commonly touted is 3 and a half but that is based on continuous stay. Many cycle on and off the benefit. Seven years doesn’t count time spent on other benefits as well – often as a consequence of never completing an education or acquiring skills. Australian research by Professor Bob Gregory showed dependent women spent an average of 12 years on welfare. This is why we have the ‘feminisation’ of poverty. The status of DPB recipients is roughly 40 percent single, 25 percent separated from a de facto, 31 percent separated, 3 percent divorced.
Steve, I can only present anecdotal evidence from my experience volunteering, from letters teachers have written to me, from letters plunket and maternity nurses have written to me, from what teenage parent counsellors and teachers have said. As well, last year New Zealand Medical Association deputy chairman, Don Simmers, said that too many women are contemplating pregnancy ON a benefit. Statistics show that thousands of babies are born onto benefits each year. At July 2005 26,126 children had been added to a current benefit. I have already dealt with why the numbers have fallen.
The financial cost is the least of my worries. I have been watching and working with this problem for years. We need to grasp the bigger picture. The decline in family formation and longevity, which has driven up all sorts of negative statistics is, in some part, attributable to the DPB.
Ancient Geek, With any DPB population snapshot, only a small percentage are teenagers because recipients are spread across a wide range of age-bands. But, and this is crucial, as many as half (and possibly a majority) started on welfare as teenagers. Look at it another way. If 100 percent of recipients were teenagers, the situation would be a vast improvement because, for this to be so, all would leave the DPB when turning twenty! They would only require state support for 2 or 3 years instead of 15 or 20 not uncommon for early-starters.
At December 2006 at least 37,600 or 37 percent of current DPB recipients had first received a benefit as a teenager. If complete benefit histories could be accessed the percentage is likely to be much higher but MSD (accessible) records only go back to 1993.
Steve, As already stated those figures apply only to each continuous spell on a benefit and at June 2007 43,866 were on their second, third, fourth etc spell.
Lindsay, thanks for the comment. I find it contentious to claim women have children specifically to get an increased benefit, or avoid work – you’re implying they’re smart enough to realise the benefits of having a child, yet fail to consider the other implications. Still, such claims (from both sides) are always innacurate at best, based upon what I’ll explain below.
There is a need to strike a balance between the ‘prepetuation’ of the benefit cycle, with the requirement for a benefit itself.
I believe we can safely assume there will always be young women who get pregnant without the ability to support the child on their own, and often without their family willing or able to assist. Your point raises the question – what effect does the availability of the DPB have on the rate of pregnancies in the aforementioned circumstances?
The problem with what you have raised is that any figures used will include all women in thse circumstances, and then blame it on the availability of the DPB. This is clearly a false premise – these things happen with or without a benefit.
The marginal cost, therefore, of a benefit – based upon the greater number of women requiring the benefit purely due to its availability – is difficult to determine, although I can imagine you could look at pregnancy rates in comparable countries that differ in benefits available to young mothers. I don’t think you’ll find much difference that can be purely attributed to the benefit.
Taking this all into consideration, I find it logical to conclude that the availability of a benefit doesn’t have a huge influence on teen/unsupported pregnancy – as said, it’s always going to happen.
As a society, we must decide what to do in these circumstances. I’d advocate childcare and training, in tandem, to assist younf mothers into work where appropriate. Making a benefit temporary, more difficult to access, restrictive in value, or otherwise detrimental to the recipient, will also have a negative impact on the child – that’s where any prepetuation will occur.
The problem you’re stating is unlikely to be significant enough to require drastic measures that will affect those genuinely in need – throwing out the baby with the bath water, as it were.
Lindsey: If what you’re suggesting is true – then you’d expect to see a high proportion as long stay in the DPB. Looking at SP’s link again.
Proportion continuously receiving current benefit
Less than one year 26.8%
Between one and four years 36.1%
Between four and ten years 25.5%
10 years or more 11.6%
So 11 odd percent at 10 years. Probably a bit higher than I’d like. I’d prefer parents to reenter the workforce faster than that. But it has been quite hard in the past with the higher unemployment levels. It took my sister a while after her seperation – about 4 or 5 years to get her pair of under-5′s to scholl and to retrain.
To get the effect you’re talking about – high percentages of long stayers on the DPB. You’d have to assume some kind of conspiracy that is dropping people on and off the DPB purely to fudge these figures.
It doesn’t seem likely as the DPB is one of the largest benefits around, and there’d be a hell of a lot of screaming it that did happen.
I’ve never seen it happen. If it did I’d have expected that my mother would be grilling me. She works at womans refuge where that kind of thing would be pretty obvious. As a Labour member paying my $15 per year, she considers that I am of course responsible for all government policy
Frankly I think you are stretching it
Ancient Geek, I get my information from MSD under the OIA. People are constantly moving on and off the DPB. There are around 30-35,000 accepted new applications each year. The turnover is large. It’s not a conspiracy. The percentage on the DPB now, who started on welfare as teenagers, weren’t necessarily on it continuously. But the point I am trying to get across is that starting on welfare as a teenager is a strong predictor of high benefit usage over a lifetime.
Matthew, Apart from the US there appears to be a reasonably strong association with benefit systems and teenage birth rates, or benefit systems and ex-nuptial birth rates. NZ and the UK are remarkably similar in both respects. On the other hand check out Sweden. There is no DPB equivalent in Sweden. Of all the children born in 2005 only 1,604 or 1.5 percent were to mothers under 20. In New Zealand there were 4,130 births to teenagers making up 7.2 percent all births in the same year. In New Zealand at least 18,000 custodial single parents either receiving or entitled to receive child support were under 25. This compares to only 5,500 in Sweden. But it is a difficult endeavour comparing countries with different ethnic make-ups and different mores and values. Southern Europe is still strongly affected by Catholic traditions, for instance. Libertad Gonzales however managed to demonstrate that the level of benefit was associated with the rate of single motherhood across Europe however.
Our teenage birth rate in the lowest socio-economic area is ten times that of the highest. The poorest girls are more likely to proceed with a pregnancy, if not more likely to get pregnant in the first place. They have less to lose in terms of future prospects and they are surrounded by others who have made the same choice. It’s ‘normal’ to go on a benefit.
I’d agree with that, and it is something that has to be worked on. It is a pattern of behaviour and extra effort and resources need to go into that group for education and workforce training. Perferably before they get pregnant. I’d favour getting family planning directly into the schools for extended periods in early puberty.
My issue is that focusing on a what is probably a relatively small percentage (looking at the under 20′s) who may be on the DPB for extended periods is a problem in itself. In the 1990′s it proved to be the classic way of penalising everyone on the DPB by treating it as a punative system.
I remember vividly my sister getting totally pissed off with having to go to social welfare (or whatever its name was at the time) to have an meaningless appointment. She was having to cut classes at her course at tech to go and wait for long periods of time at the office to talk to a social worker about how she was doing at tech. This was while she was trying to fit a 2-year retraining to get back into the workforce, around 2 small children going to daycare or school. This was common issue amongst a number of my friends who wound up with failed marriages.
As far as I’m concerned that was a procedure that was specifically designed to be punative for the group you’re talking about. But it was one of the most stupid and pointless wastes of my taxes I could imagine for the majority of people on the DPB, who were on it only for a few years, and were actively moving back into the workforce.
So whenever I hear people talking about the DPB