Within a generation, most British children will not know what it is like to have married parents, according to facts published last week by the Office for National Statistics.

The report found that unmarried couples living together soared 65 percent in the past decade. It forecasts an additional 250 percent increase by 2031 for ages 45-64, at which point, the status quo will flip-flop: Rather than married families dominating the average British household, cohabitating couples and single mothers will.

Britain currently has 2.6 million single mothers, an 8 percent increase in the past 10 years. In London, 22 percent of families are led by single moms. In the heart of London, the boroughs of Lambeth and Islington have single-parent rates of 48 percent and 47 percent respectively.

Currently, almost 70 percent of Britain’s cohabiting couples are married.

In the same report, the statistics office indicated Britain suffers with every married two-parent household it loses.

For instance, the report states that children living with married parents are more likely to earn good marks in the classroom and continue their formal education for longer.

Children living without married parents not only do worse at school, but they also are more likely to contract serious illnesses.

The report also found that single mothers are less healthy than their married counterparts, and linked illness with divorce and separation as well. Married women in the 40-64 demographic have “significant health advantages,” according to the report. Mothers are also healthier than women who did not have children.

Husbands gain better health from marriage as well, and their wives enjoy better financial circumstances. Married couples also care for elderly relatives more than unmarried couples do.

“Cohabitation is growing in the younger age groups,” one of the report’s statisticians said. “[T]he care burden is mostly in the middle and older age groups. As that younger group gets older there could be a larger problem of care provision if the relationships don’t develop into marriage-like commitments” (Guardian, October 5).

According to the Telegraph, sociologists and policy experts are joining those who say the government should promote marriage and stop rewarding cohabitation.

“There should no longer be any argument about the importance of marriage,” the Center for Policy Studies’ Jill Kirby said. “It is not simply traditional, it protects children best and gives them the optimum start” (Telegraph, October 5).

“People used to say it made no difference how you lived, but we have lots of research now which shows it does,” Robert Whelan, deputy director of think tank Civitas, said. “However, if you have a tax and benefit system which rewards cohabitation and living apart, this is what happens” (ibid.).

Conservative leader David Cameron said it was dangerous to ignore that “one in two cohabitating parents split up before their child’s fifth birthday, compared to one in 12 married parents.” Cameron called family breakdown the “central factor” in Britain’s social breakdown.

Meanwhile, the majority party is preparing to pass laws financially and legally bolstering cohabitation as opposed to marriage.

As families break down in Britain, to the point of becoming the minority, watch for the nation’s social problems to multiply. For more on how and why families are the answer, read Conspiracy Against Fatherhood by Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry.