Family

Stable families contribute to everything from exam results to employment. They are the key to both mental and physical health and are the central plank to individual happiness.

The CSJ has long worked to stem the rise in family breakdown but with marriage rates collapsing, the growing issue is not that families fall apart, it is that families are not even forming in the first place. 2022 was the first year in history that the majority of children in the UK were born to parents not in a civil partnership or marriage, and births to married parents continue to hover around the 50 per cent mark. Firstly, this means that childhood is increasingly unstable, but secondly the collapse in coupling means many babies are not born at all – the UK’s birthrate is nowhere near replacement.

This is already starting to change the face of poverty in the UK, adding strain to the public purse. The ratio of working-age adults to pensioners shrinks year by year, and with it, the sustainability of our economy. Welfare, health and care services are struggling to cope. This is an area of society and culture that needs urgent research and answers to map a route out of an emerging crisis.