LINDSAY MITCHELL: Boosting birth rates with benefit payments is a very bad idea

Last week the UK government gave in to the growing pressure from activists to scrap their two child cap on welfare benefits - this despite polling showing majority support for the cap. Glancing through commentary in response to this move, there is an increasingly common theme appearing. That governments should not curb welfare payments for children when the fertility rates are heading south. Or, put another way, birth rates should be incentivised - not discouraged. Who cares where the money to raise children comes from?

In this day and age it is impossible to have a debate about what characteristics a population needs to have in the next generation.

But we can look at NZ Treasury work on the Characteristics of Children at Greater Risk of Poor Outcomes. Their study was based on a population of children aged 0-14 years,

"informed by a cohort analysis of individuals born in 1993, who can be observed through to age 21 in the dataset."

Being "mostly supported by welfare benefits since birth" is considered one of four risk factors for poor outcomes later in life.

The data was split into two age groups.

Children aged 0-5 who were "mostly supported by welfare benefits since birth" numbered 67,326 or 18.6% of the total 0-5 population. Their ethnic breakdown was Maori 58.6%; European 21.4%; Pacific 15%; Asian 3.2% and other 1.8%. Over three quarters of the benefit-raised children had a mother who was single at the time of birth.

Their outcomes were compared to those of the total population. There is enough data provided however to enable comparison with the population not mostly supported by welfare benefits.

Here are some findings:

35.2 percent of the benefit-raised children had a notification to CYF compared to 6.2 percent of the non-benefit group.

15.4 percent of the benefit-raised children had a police family violence referral to CYF compared to 2.1 percent in the non-benefit group.

48.6 percent of the benefit-raised children had a parent with a community or custodial sentence history compared to 9.8 percent in the non-benefit group.

24.8 percent of the benefit-raised children had a substantiated finding of abuse or neglect compared to 4.3 percent for the non-benefit group.

Treasury went on to project future outcomes (before age 21) for older children aged 6-14 who remained mostly supported by welfare benefits with data providing the following comparisons:

38.6 percent of the benefit-raised children did not achieve any school qualification compared to 14.6 percent of the non-benefit children

22.6 percent of the benefit-raised children received their own benefit for 2 or more years compared to 5.2 percent of the non-benefit group.

51.7 percent of the benefit-raised children had further contact with CYF compared to 13.4 percent in the non-benefit group

By age 35 Treasury calculated that those children who had been mostly raised on benefits between 0 and 14 years of age would cost, on average, $198,000 in Care and Protection, Youth Justice, Corrections and Benefit costs versus $48,621 for the non-benefit group.

There are further comparisons available. Suffice to say children raised on welfare generally become adults who are less educated, have poorer mental health, are more likely to become single parents, to rely on welfare and fall foul of the law.

If being born onto welfare and staying there long-term is a risky business for children, why would any government want to encourage this? In other walks of life we are bombarded with health and safety regulation. And in an environment where 'sustainability' is a constant clamour, how does growing costly dependency stack up?

Those who advocate limitless number and duration of child benefit payments - the situation that currently exists in New Zealand and the UK is returning to - are ignoring the evidence.

Those saying we need more welfare in order to produce more children are pushing a remedy fraught with risk, cost and irresponsibility.

Lindsay Mitchell blogs here