UK bad, but NZ worse

The Brits have just issued a gloomy report called the State of the Nation report: Poverty, Worklessness and Welfare Dependence in the UK. It is spilling over with sombre stats.

I have scanned two of the graphs from their section on family breakdown. They should have included NZ. It might have made them feel a tad better.

The first claims the highest European teenage birthrate;




The second claims one of the highest proportions of single parent families in the OECD:



The last is very interesting. It depicts the proportion of children with behavioural difficulties according to their family background. LP = Lone Parent.





It should be also recognised that those with behavioural difficulties also cause and experience a compounding effect because they tend to be clustered together in the poorest deciles. Now someone will tell me that their difficulties are to do with material deprivation. Somewhat. But studies have controlled for this and the poorer outcomes for children with single parents hold when considering families with equivalent incomes.

(Hat tip to Anne Else for bringing the report to my attention.)