The £20 billion annual cost of family breakdown | Daily Mail Online
Last month the Daily Mail revealed figures showing that poor white boys have now become the worst-performing group in schools, falling behind poor Caribbean boys who have in the past been expected to do worst.
The report links performance with family background. Children from Indian families - only 15 per cent of whom come from broken or single-parent families - do best in schools.
Poor white boys, as measured by whether they get free school meals, come from single parent families more frequently than the national average, which shows that just under one in four children are brought up by one parent.
Caribbean boys have the highest rate of single parent families of all. More than half are brought up by one parent.
Mr Duncan Smith told the BBC yesterday: "What we found was one of the fastest growing groups that are having children in society are cohabting parents.
"But what was startling about he figures was that among cohabitees one in two are going to break up and leave a single parent household before the child is five."
He said the state was left to 'pick up the pieces' of impoverished broken homes.
"We can't have a stable workforce and a productive economy if a grwoing number of people at the bottom end of society are workless and without hope," he added.
The report suggests the welfare state has replaced the 'welfare society' of self-supporting stable married families and the links between them.
Labour ministers have increasingly sought to intervene in family life to try to improve the lives of poor children.
Chancellor Gordon Brown's welfare system of tax credits has pumped more than £15 billion a year in extra benefits mainly into single parent families, while projects like the £3 billion Sure Start system have tried to supervise the upbringing of their children.
Ministers have advised on how children should brush their teeth and called for classes to teach mothers how to sing their children nursery rhymes.
But at the same time remaining tax support for married couples has been stripped away, and the Government insists that marriage is a mere lifestyle choice that has no bearing on the success of families.
The £20 billion annual cost of family breakdown | Daily Mail Online
Last month the Daily Mail revealed figures showing that poor white boys have now become the worst-performing group in schools, falling behind poor Caribbean boys who have in the past been expected to do worst.
The report links performance with family background. Children from Indian families - only 15 per cent of whom come from broken or single-parent families - do best in schools.
Poor white boys, as measured by whether they get free school meals, come from single parent families more frequently than the national average, which shows that just under one in four children are brought up by one parent.
Caribbean boys have the highest rate of single parent families of all. More than half are brought up by one parent.
Mr Duncan Smith told the BBC yesterday: "What we found was one of the fastest growing groups that are having children in society are cohabting parents.
"But what was startling about he figures was that among cohabitees one in two are going to break up and leave a single parent household before the child is five."
He
 said the state was left to 'pick up the pieces' of impoverished broken homes.
"We can't have a stable workforce and a productive economy if a grwoing number of people at the bottom end of society are workless and without hope," he added.
The report suggests the welfare state has replaced the 'welfare society' of self-supporting stable married families and the links between them.
Labour ministers have increasingly sought to intervene in family life to try to improve the lives of poor children.
Chancellor Gordon Brown's welfare system of tax credits has pumped more than £15 billion a year in extra benefits mainly into single parent families, while projects like the £3 billion Sure Start system have tried to supervise the upbringing of their children.
Ministers have advised on how children should brush their teeth and called for classes to teach mothers how to sing their children nursery rhymes.
But at the same time remaining tax support for married couples has been stripped away, and the Government insists that marriage is a mere lifestyle choice that has no bearing on the success of families.