National and Solo Mums

I wonder where John Key intends for all these Solo Mothers to work when unemployment is tipped to increase to 6% next year? Becuase if we look at the FACTS the way Christine Todd does in todays Herald column, the FACTS mind you, not the talkback rhetoric, not the 'breeding for business' that John Key labelled those on the DPB as, the FACTS are very interesting. Only 3% of those on the DPB are under 20 and 60% are Pakeha - those facts themeslves will probably make those on the right trying to convince us that we need harsher conditions to sort those bludgers out pause in shock, it can't be easy to have a stereotype as close to National Party supporters as vermin solo mothers challenged by something as dreary as the facts.

Christine Todd: Social stigma makes parenting alone that much harder
The stereotype of a single parent is a Maori sole mother under 20 on Domestic Purposes Benefit with kids to different fathers and lazy to boot.

Sole parents are often identified as an economic and social "problem" in political debate and by the media. But these stereotypes themselves affect social attitudes and undermine the mental and emotional well-being of sole parents and their families.

Demographers suggest that single parent families are an inevitable reflection of an increasingly complex and diverse society. Greater sexual liberalisation has meant that today less than 50 per cent of the adult population is married and 20 per cent choose to cohabit.

And while marriage rates have declined, divorce rates have increased. Only 3 per cent of sole mothers are under 20 and almost 60 per cent are Pakeha.

Statistics New Zealand figures project single parent families to increase from 31 to 38 per cent of all families with dependent children, between 2001 and 2021.

The child poverty rate in New Zealand, at 16.3 per cent, is high by OECD standards, but for children in single parent households this figure increases to 47 per cent.