Sue Bradford has been reminding people this morning of the risks that might come from  National’s rumoured proposal to put mothers who are on the Domestic Purposes Benefit back to work:

‘In 2001 the Ministry of Social Development carried out an evaluation of National’s DPB reforms of the late 90s, and found that:

• The financial benefits of being pushed into part time employment were limited, with part time workers on lower average rates of pay than those in full time jobs, as well as facing the additional costs of going out to work.
• Sole parents found it hard to access childcare that was accessible, affordable and high quality. They often had to take on night work.
• MSD had concerns about possible negative effects on children, including children under 14 being left home alone while their parent is out at work (see ‘Evaluating the February 1999 Domestic Purposes Benefit and Widows Benefit Reforms’, MSD, November 2001).

The idea that mothers are some how cheating the system by choosing to stay home looking after their kids rather than getting out there into the workforces is risible.  It’s probably the policy initiative of some wonk who has not spent enough time at the time share luxury holiday that is full-time-at-home motherhood (or fatherhood).

The Ministry of Social Development’s Statistical Report notes:

Since 2002, almost all working aged recipients of Domestic Purposes Benefits – Sole Parents or Emergency Maintenance Allowances have had a youngest dependent child aged 14 years or under. This included around 47% of these recipients who were caring for a child aged under five years (see table 3.13). By law, children aged less than 14 years require supervision at all times.

About 60% of those benefits went to sole parents whose children were under 5 years of age. The number of people on carers’ benefits (which includes the DPB) who cancelled those benefits because they found work increased steadily each year from 11,055 during 2001/2002 to 14,525 during 2005/06, while the number who transferred to another benefit fell from 8,364 to 6,011.

So here’s what we have;

• Parents, mostly mothers, who are trying to care for their young children on their own.
• A societal expectation that they should be at home to look after those children.
• A competing expectation that they should go out and find work and get off the benefit.
• The occasional attempt to demonise this group by suggesting that years of broken sleep and nappies is a lifestyle done for the purpose of living on a benefit. Personally if I wanted to ‘mooch off the state’ I think it might be a better lifestyle as an advisor at Treasury.
• And a group of hard working mothers who are trying to meet all these expectations and the needs of their child or children, by working hard to use they benefit while they need it to support their children then working hard to find employment once they no longer need it.

Collins criticised the number of 16 year old solo mothers or fathers on the DPB, failing to note that in fact that most 16 years olds can’t go on the DPB.  She then says that too many of those former 16-19-year olds are still on the DPB when they are aged 20-24.  Given the earliest most would have gone on the DPB was when they were 18, that means those mothers going from one age bracket to the next might well have been receiving the DBP for 2 years, and possibly 6.

Which begs the question, how old should a child be before the state should start putting pressure on her or his mother to get out of the house and find a job?  Should we deprive 2-year-old children of having their mother or father to save $255 a week?   Or should we wait until they are the self supporting, independent age of 5? What if a ‘DPB mother’ has more than one child – does her time still expire and subsequent kids miss out on support?   Should we only measure how long each mother has been on the DBP, (like an overdue library book) or should we instead be looking at the age and needs of her children – for whom the benefit is for afterall?