Large families

To be sure in this discussion that information is correct. Try the CPAG and the ONS site for the facts about family size benefits etc.

www.cpag.org.uk/

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/family-demography/family-size/2012/index.html

and for stuff about immigrants rights

https://www.facebook.com/#!/KeepCalmBritain

That's interesting. It seems there are more large families on welfare than I thought, more than 1 in 10. I wonder why that is? What percentage of the population is on welfare? Is it 1 in 10?

Absent I would be very interested to know which person on Gransnet posted 'that large families on benefits should be left to starve'

Greatnan I am well aware that there are many areas of the world that are less populated but I was talking globally. We have finite natural resources and each mouth accounts for a drain on them. Whilst it is understandable in Third World countries that uneducated women with no access to contraception or health care continue to have many children, I don't think it is acceptable in the developed world. I believe it is selfish in fact. I am obviously not talking about 'blended' families.

So, I would go back to education.

I agree with you Sel but how do we get the people who need the education to accept it? More integration between families would hep.

I would also like to know who these gransnetters are with the extreme opinions which are so frequently mentioned.

I don't think it is selfish to have a larger family if you can afford it. If you then hit hard times that is when the welfare system should kick in to help. If however, you can't afford to have a large family yourself it is most certainly selfish to expect the rest of us to keep them.

Sel Why are you asking me such a silly question? You and I know perfectly well that no one had posted that on Gransnet and I never said anyone had.

Absent C&P below:

absent Fri 05-Apr-13 10:47:01

Greatnan I'm not so sure you're right. Reading letters in various newspapers and even some of the posts on Gransnet, I think that there are people who would leave the children of existing large families on welfare to starve. They would shake their heads and say how sad it is but the parents have been so irresponsible.

Movedalot I think regardless of who pays, people should be encouraged to limit the number of children they produce. There is a problem, the Earth can't continue to support more and more people. Children could understand that simple concept, just as they can understand climate change etc. Every discussion on large families ends up with people saying 'well, what's to be done?' Obviously nothing can be done for those with existing children but I firmly believe that there should be a limit on state support for any in excess of three.

Movealot does it not depend on what you mean by "on welfare".
and 1 in 10 of what? No point nellie trying to put info out there if it then becomes confused in the comments.

Thank you very much for the links, Nellie - it is good to have the correct figures. I was especially interested in this section:

•There were 7.7 million families with dependent children in the UK in 2012, 1 in 7 of which had three or more dependent children
•Married couples had a higher average number of dependent children in their family than other family types, at 1.8 children per family compared with 1.7 on average
•The UK has a higher percentage of households with three or more children than three-quarters of European Union countries
•Nearly 9 in 10 couple families with three or more dependent children had either one or both parents working

It seem that married couples are the biggest breeders - not single mothers.
And most couples with larger families had one or both parents working - not shirkers then.

So many myths, so few facts.

Jess just look at what Greatnan has saved everyone the bother of reading and you will see it is not confusing. It is not difficult to work out that if "•Nearly 9 in 10 couple families with three or more dependent children had either one or both parents working" then more than I in 10 must be on welfare, is it? I then asked another question to which the answer might add something to the discussion.

Moved I read it the same way - maybe it's a political thing.

I don't understand the point you are making, Movedalot. So what if one tenth of the families are in receipt of benefits?

Greatnan perhaps if you read my posts again you will understand? If you have a specific question relating to one of them please ask it.

More than 1 in 10, since many families where one or even both work are also claiming some sort of benefit (say partial housing benefit, tax credits) if the income is low enough).

I thought I had asked a specific question, but here it is again:
So what if one tenth are in receipt of benefits?

Same question to you, Petallus. So what?

So what indeed!

Is that an answer?

Same as petallus. What has that question got to do with any of my posts?

I think depending on where we live we all have different perspectives. I live in the over crowded South East where you can't help be aware that we have a finite amount of space, we have a dire lack of affordable housing, hospitals are overcrowded, new schools are springing up all over the place. The primary near us has just acquired a piece of land to build a much needed third class to every year, when my children went there it was slightly under subscribed. My husband's daughter who works in central London tells me the daily commute is hell, particularly the London Underground part of it. I believe her annual season ticket is something in the order of £4,000 per annum for the privilege of packing herself into perpetually overstuffed trains on a daily basis. I worked up in town for some 10 years back in the '70s and early '80s, it was heaving then, but it's sure as hell a lot worse now. Nevertheless, I appreciate that living near the capital over crowding is possibly something that goes with the territory. Would under populated countries such as New Zealand with it's mere 4 million people be considered such an idyll however if it had a population of between 60 and 70 million?

I don't think anyone would want a "China" type of society where draconian measures are imposed to limit the number of children people have, but at what stage does a country reach saturation point and should we not give some thought to future generations as to how they are going to cope with such an over burdened infrastructure. Aware as we all are that we need a younger working population to support an ever increasing aging population, it's the logistics of how they are all to be accommodated that perplexes me!

I had a friend in junior school who was one of 13 children, even the nuns at my Catholic school raised an eyebrow, mainly because the eldest three girls had to share the school regulation hat, so my friend only got to wear "the hat" every third day. I remember going back to their smallish house and was shocked to see how all these beds were crammed into three fairly small bedrooms and the parents slept in the lounge. My friend, being the oldest had to bear the brunt of helping her mother with child care, she told me that her family life was chaos, endless drudgery and she longed for a "small space of her own" but that wasn't possible. She also told me that living the way she did put her off having children. I lost touch with her so I don't know whether she did have children or not, but the up close memory of this very large family crammed into a small house stayed with me in a "descending into hell" sort of way. Of course they were an extreme case back then, and even at a Catholic school they wouldn't have been considered the norm, just as the much discussed Philpott family set up is perceived unorthodox today to say the least.

"Nearly 9 in 10 couple families with three or more dependent children had either one or both parents working"
does not translate directly into
"1 in 10 must be on welfare"
Work is mentioned in one and welfare in another. Some of those working are in receipt of benefits. in fact most of those in receipt of some benefits are working. Some of those not working may have unearned income that they live on.
You cannot pluck a statistic, shake it by the scruff of the neck and kick it around a bit and still have it make sense. It's like you toss up a pancake and down comes a chapatti.
So I wondered if you had got the figure from somewhere else on those websites.

Surely Jess it is a fair assumption based on those facts? Perhaps a few are living on unearned income but that would be more than balanced by the number receiving welfare benefits while in work. Therefore it is a reasonable assumption that 1 in 10 must be on welfare. In fact I think the figure is probably conservative because, as you said, "most of those in receipt of some benefits are working". Please explain why you think my assumptions are wrong? Many thanks

According to CPAG "Almost two-thirds (62 per cent) of children growing up in poverty live in a household where at least one member works". It depends how you define work.

Much has been said about job creation, but of OECD countries, only the US had (in 2011) as high a percentage of part-time work as UK. A family depending on the wages of a part-time employee will be in receipt of welfare benefits, but unless that part-time work is over 24 hours per week, they will not have the working tax credits that they were once entitled to receive.

I was echoing your 'so what' Greatnan. In other words agreeing with your sentiments as I understood them.

I was also making the point that not only those unfortunate enough to be out of work claim welfare payments; some of those 'hard working families' so beloved of Cameron also have to have top ups from the state because of abysmally low wages and rising prices.

I agree with petallus that more than 1 in 10 families with 3 or more children are on some kind of benefit.
Because working/not working figures cannot be translated into on benefit/not on benefit figures.
Housing benefit is I believe paid to more working than non working families.
Its like saying 9 out of 10 families eat apples therefore 1 in 10 eat pears. The logic does not follow.