Cohabitation v Marriage

• New right blames lone parent families on the collapse of cohabiting couples
• Benson 2006: analysed 15,000 babies and found that over 3 years - rate of familial breakdown was much higher in cohabiting couples at 20% compared to 6% among married couples - only marriage can provide stable background for a child to grow up in
• Benson (2010/11) couples more stable when married as marriage is a deliberate commitment to each other whereas cohabitation allows partners to avoid commitment
• Ian Duncan Smith argued for a return to traditional values during his report 'Dadlessness'
• Laws and policies such as easy access to divorce, same-sex marriage and widespread availability to the welfare state as undermining conventional families