"If illegitimate births are the leading indicator
of an underclass and violent crime a proxy measure of its development, the
definitive proof that an underclass has arrived is that large numbers of young,
healthy, low-income males choose not to take jobs. ( The young, idle rich are a
separate problem.) This decrease in labour force participation is the most
elusive of the trends in the growth of the British underclass." Charles
Murray.
Extremely accurate when written twenty
plus years ago, there are a pair of social changes which now need to be brokered
into the situation but neither of these undermines Murray's basic premise. The
first is the fact that mere illegitimacy must be most carefully defined today as
there are many more couples who are having children out of wedlock but whose
relationships may well be stable. Perhaps we need to define single parenthood
into discrete social groups. One example would be where a loving parent in a
stable relationship has died which clearly bears no similarity whatsoever to a
situation wherein a single woman has a number of children all to
different fathers - all long departed. Secondly, and a great deal more
difficult to pin down is the deleterious effect on poorer communities of mass,
unskilled labour. This turns job-seeking, already difficult in such communities,
into a futile exercise. Numbers alone make this situation much more difficult
for them and that is without even considering the downward pressure on earned
income because of illegal employment practices.
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