From The Metro:
Here's an easy solution to the increase in the rate of under-age pregnancies. Pass a law ensuring that those having babies are not entitled to red carpet treatment, so not get access to the benefits gravy train and do not get preference on social housing waiting lists.
Just watch the rates tumble. The savings to the state across social, housing, work and NHS budgets would be immmense.
John, West Midlands.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Reader's letter of the day (2)
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12 comments:
... and what happens to the babies that *do* still get born?
Ah, but they don't get born, because Incentives Matter.
And if they do, they weren't supposed to, so we can ignore the problem and leave them to starve. Or sell them for glue. It's the Glibertarian Way, hurrah!
SB, JB, this is how it is in The Netherlands (to name but one) and the streets aren't exactly lined with young mothers clutching starving children.
Or being glibertarian about it, what's better, for ten thousand children to born into poverty each year or one hundred thousand?
John, you are suggesting firehosing money around so that the one in one hundred babies who really need it get it, as well as the ninety nine who don't?
If you didn't spend my money on the ninety nine, I would have enough of my own money left to give to charity to help the one who was in real need.
If you subsidise something, you get more of it.
In the case of young people, they know the consequences of youth pregnancy are lessened by the state, and they take this into consideration when they have unprotected sex. They make a risk judgement just as they do when crossing the road. If all cars were made of sponge foam, more of them would run blindly into the road.
Now, we know a minority of youths still run blindly into the path of big, not very bouncy, cars, and the removal of state handouts wouldn't remove underage pregnancy. But that is where the charity sector comes in.
Sorry, I was wrong about the glue: of course, private sector charity will provide. Like it did before we had a welfare state.
(fx: leafs through my copious volumes of 15th-20th century British history)
Oh, bugger, that doesn't really work, does it?
...meanwhile, in the Netherlands, teen mothers do receive benefits - they're just expected to remain in the family home til they're 18 unless the relationship has irretrievably broken down. As they, err, are here.
In any case, to the extent that the two systems do differ, I'd *definitely* be willing to accept any minor differences in the benefits system - as long as we can also introduce their general sex education system, which is without a shadow of doubt the main factor in our differing rates.
JB, if NL is too far away, just look at the stat's from the UK. There is a more or less perfect correlation between the frequency under age pregnancies and average incomes in a borough, see here.
OK, that's the statistics on under age pregnancies not all single-mother live births, but the point on incentives still stands.
Or for more stat's on the correlation between Tax Credits (which are heavily skewed in favour of single mothers) and family breakdown/divorce, see the article in today's FT.
Your correlation leaves out levels of rationality in the first place though - a better-educated girl has a lot more comprehension of the value of the trade-off that's being made - and whether or not she's likely to get pregnant in the first place.
I'm locked out of the FT but will try and track down that study - am highly sceptical on the face of it.
You vastly underestimate the rationality of The Underclass. True, middle class lasses are a lot more careful/frigid* but they're not nuns or anything.
If the FT locks you out, apparently you just have to change 'false' in the URL box to 'true'.
* Delete according to taste.
How about only paying benefits to an adult on behalf of the teenage mum? So someone (presumably a parent) would have to step up and take them in up to the age of 18. No flats, some financial assistance, but not enough to live on your own.
If parents thought they would end up with their feckless teenage daughters landed on them until they were 18, they might put more pressure on them to be less promiscuous.
Plus as others have said, kids are not stupid - once they see the new system happening to one of their classmates, that will have the biggest effect. Pour encourager les autres is powerful stuff.
Sobers, that's exactly what they do in The Netherlands, it makes sense and it 'works'.
I hesitate to rely on stuff that fundy Christians publish, but see here for summary.
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