 News
10th March 2008
'Terrible
legacy' of children from work-shy familiesThousands of children
are growing up in families where their parents and grandparents have never worked.
A senior Government adviser warned yesterday how this was creating a "terrible
legacy" of youngsters who had no expectation they would ever get a job. Dame
Carol Black said: "We have got places where there are three generations of men
who have never worked. "If your grandfather never worked and your father
never worked, why would you think work is the normal thing to do? "I think
it is an awful thing to inflict on a child. I worry about what this does to the
fabric of our society, let alone the economy." Dame Carol, the National
Director of Health and Work, has been charged with investigating the incapacity
benefit system. Nearly 3million Britons currently claim long-term incapacity
benefit, and one in five children is growing up in a family where one or both
parents rely on out-of-work benefits. Despite Government claims that it
has eradicated youth unemployment, figures showed that there are 1.24million "Neets"
in the country - youngsters aged between 16 and 24 who are not working, in education
or on a training course. The number of Neets has risen by 15 per cent since
Labour came to power in 1997. Dame Carol said: "There are too many people
with no expectation that their lives are going to get better, no structure, no
shape. "I worry about the way these patterns will be replicated, whether
it is about young single mothers whose children don't understand the role of work,
or about truant children becoming more likely to be workless when they reach adulthood."
The report, which will be published this week, is expected to find that
psychiatric disorders in children aged between five and 15 are five times more
common in families where the parents have never worked, compared with those where
the parents have professional jobs. Dame Carol, who is a medical professor
specialising in rheumatology, believes that too many people remain on sick leave
for years - when quicker intervention could have helped ward off long-term mental
and physical health problems. She said she had grown up in a family with
a deeply ingrained work ethic. "We weren't really wealthy - on our bookshelf we
had the Bible and a full set of Dickens, and that was it," she told the Sunday
Telegraph. "But my father had a job at the Coop and a secure wage, and
I knew how important that was. "There was structure and there was order,
and I think that is lacking now in a lot of families. "If you don't have
to get up for work in the morning, why get up?" It was revealed last month
that almost half of youngsters in some regions are growing up in households claiming
out-of-work benefits. Figures uncovered by the Conservatives showed Britain
has a higher proportion of children in such households than any other European
country. Dame Carol's warning was followed by a call from Conservative
leader David Cameron for an end to the Government's "disastrous failure" to tackle
child poverty. "One in 15 adults of working age is ignored by the Government,"
he said. "If we can't help their parents back into work, we are in effect
abandoning those children to a life of poverty. "Many of these children
will fall behind at school. Many will never work. Many will go on to bring up
their own children in poverty. The consequences for them - and for our society
- will last a generation." Where to next? | 
