Family Support Partnership Lanarkshire

Estimating the cost of family breakdown to the state is difficult and controversial. This is because there are both direct and indirect costs of family breakdown, and the latter can be extremely wide-ranging.

Direct costs associated with family breakdown include housing, and decreased employment. Slightly less direct are the costs of time taken off work and visits to the GP. There are then many indirect costs – such as educational failure and drug misuse, all things which are shown to be more likely in households where the parent’s relationship has broken down.

How much these cost the state – and how much of this cost can be attributed to relationship breakdown – is contested. The child of a teen parent, whose parents themselves separated, may go on to cost the state a disproportionately large amount over his lifetime. How much of this was due to the failure of his grandparents’ relationship? A family where the parent’s relationship has broken down is more likely to contain children indulging in anti-social behaviour. This, in turn, leads to their eviction. Such a family costs the taxpayer between £250,000 and £330,000. How much of this cost can be attributed to family breakdown?

Unsurprisingly, the costs of family breakdown are exaggerated or downplayed according to viewpoints. One of the most recent costings came from the Social Justice Policy Group. Their analysis resulted in a cost to the nation of between £20 and £24billion, or £680-£820 per taxpayer. This included both direct and indirect costs.

Filed under: Family Mediation, Relationship Counselling, Research by FSPL on February 27, 2008