Becoming and Being a Young Parent: Family Careers in Poor Neighbourhoods

Abstract

Processes of family formation hold a particularly important, contested place in debates about the underclass and policies on social exclusion (Murray, 1994, 2000; Social Exclusion Unit, 1998b; Duncan and Edwards, 1999). Whilst underclass perspectives point to the alleged cultural reproduction of troublesome, benefit-dependent families, government policy targeting of, for instance, teenage mothers emphasises the social inequalities said to accrue to them and, later, to their offspring (Hobcraft,1998; Hobcraft and Kiernan, 1999; Arai, 2003; ISER, 2004).

I think it’s disgraceful — Girls go to school and aged sixteen don’t do no exams, think ‘I’ll open me legs, get a sprog and then I’m set for life’.

(Stuart, 26, married father, part-time employed)