The Centre for Social Justice today issued a report claiming that the number of lone parent families in Britain is increasing at a rate of more than 20,000 per year, and will total more than two million by the time of the next election. The report also finds that at least one million children are growing up without a father and that some of the poorest parts of the country have become ‘men deserts’ because so few primary schools have male teachers. According to the Centre’s director, Christian Guy:
For children growing up in some of the poorest parts of the country, men are rarely encountered in the home or in the classroom. This is an ignored form of deprivation that can have profoundly damaging consequences on social and mental development. There are ‘men deserts’ in many parts of our towns and cities and we urgently need to wake up to what is going wrong.
The CSJ report has certainly captured the media headlines, with both the BBC and the Daily Telegraph highlighting the finding that ‘a million children are growing up without a father’ and the latter reporting ‘a lack of male role models’ in many children’s lives.
Image from Centre for Social Justice website
Obviously, the report will need to be studied in detail, and at the Beyond Male Role Models project we will certainly be doing so, as part of our ongoing review of the research and policy literature. However, some initial thoughts spring to mind, based on the press release and brief summary of the report released today.
Firstly, it’s important to acknowledge that the statistical findings of the Centre’s report may be accurate, and it may well be true that the number of lone parent households is increasing, and the proportion of men employed as teachers in primary schools declining. However, it will also be important to examine these findings carefully, for example to see how the researchers define lone parent households, or whether the school statistics are borne out by other studies (some of which have found a slight recent increase in the number of male teachers). Secondly, it’s certainly important not to dismiss the report’s findings about the impact of family instability on the lives of children, particularly those in the poorest communities.
However, from the point of view of our research study, what will be most interesting to explore are the linkages made in the report between increased father absence and communities that have become ‘men deserts’ on the one hand, and poor outcomes, particularly for children and young people, on the other. The press release already hints at this, with its claim that father absence is responsible for increases in ‘teenage crime, pregnancy and disadvantage’. It will be interesting to see whether this claim is supported by convincing evidence, or whether (as has happened with some other reports) the absence of a resident father is abstracted from a whole range of contributory factors and highlighted as the single or main cause of complex social problems.
It will also be interesting to see what kind of solutions the Centre for Social Justice is proposing for the problems it identifies. There’s a danger that, having identified the absence of men as the root cause of the problems experienced by poor families and communities, then simply re-inserting men into the situation becomes the one-stop, catch-all solution. Without denying that children usually fare better when there are two parents around, we mustn’t overlook the diverse and often complex reason why fathers may be absent from the family home – for example, if there has been a history of domestic violence (Polly Toynbee made this point on Twitter earlier today). And we shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that the parenting provided by lone mothers is somehow inadequate because there isn’t a man around. At the same time, although children benefit from a mix of genders in the classroom, policy-makers must be careful not to assume that simply employing more men as teachers will – by itself – solve the problem of boys’ underachievement or anti-social behaviour. Research has shown that what children (both boys and girls) really value is good teachers of either gender – just as what they need at home is loving, involved parents, whether male or female, biological or otherwise.
Our research study certainly isn’t denying that father absence or the lack of male teachers can be a problem. And we’re keeping an open mind about whether having more positive male role models in their lives would improve outcomes, particularly for boys. But we want to examine whether the sometimes simplistic link made between the absence of male role models and the problems experienced by boys is supported by the evidence. And we want to explore what it is that young men really value in the adults – whether or male or female – who care for them and support them, and the part played by gender in those relationships.
(More positive?) image from the Telegraph's story today
To sum up, the Centre for Social Justice report is a welcome contribution to the ongoing debate about men, masculinity and family life, but as researchers we will (of course) be casting a critical eye over its findings and proposals, while arguing that more work still needs to be done on the part played by gender in improving outcomes for some of the most vulnerable boys and young men.
