Burden falls on taxpayers when marriages fail [Canada]

Vancouver Sun ^ | June 5, 2009 | Barbara Yaffe

[fgoodwin]

If Ward and June Cleaver had divorced, Beaver and Wally would have faced a bleak future and cost the government a bundle to boot.

Such a concept has become more scarce these days. That is, a lot more people are divorcing. A report released this week by the Ottawa-based Institute of Marriage and Family reveals that 92 per cent of Canadian families had two parents in 1961 compared to 69 per cent in 2006.

It might be none of our business how individuals handle their own marriages, suggests the report, if it weren't for the financial costs being imposed on taxpayers as a result.

Private Choices, Public Costs: How failing families cost us all, asserts we spent nearly $7 billion in the 2005/06 fiscal year on costs related to supporting needy, single-parent families.

Researchers Rebecca Walberg and Andrea Mrozek stress that figure is conservative, based on housing, child care and welfare support programs. Not included are family court, women's shelter or mediation costs.

The right-leaning think tank wants Canadians to start thinking about ways to discourage divorce and questions whether the pendulum has swung too far in making breakups easier and more socially acceptable than previously.

The report uses government statistics to demonstrate that single-parent families, overwhelmingly headed by women, are poorer and more reliant on public help.

And that their children are more likely to drop out of school, will be more prone to depression and child abuse, and will need foster care.

One thing is clear: when it comes to public spending on divorced and lone-parent families, Canada has plenty of company. The report cites even higher associated costs in the U.S. and Britain.

[fgoodwin]

Institute of Marriage and Family

Private Choices, Public Costs: How failing families cost us all

[ex91B10]

And it will turn out the same with gay marriage and gay adoption.

[fgoodwin]

I think the study was limited to comparing single-parent families to traditional families.

It would be interesting to see a study comparing homosexual “families” to traditional families in terms of the emotional stability of the children, their success in school, college & work, how much gay “families” cost the taxpayer and in what areas, etc.

Aren’t gay “marriages” much more likely to end up in divorce than traditional marriages? I don’t have the figures handy, but if that’s the case, then the children of those failed “marriages” would likely suffer even more than the children that were the focus of the study.