- High rates of family breakdown relegate white, working class boys to bottom place for achievement among differing ethnic groups
- Poor non-white children are almost three times (2.85x) more likely to have married parents than white counterparts
- Marriage rate among male pensioners is now 37 per cent higher than men their early twenties
- Calls for “generational reset” focusing on early years and family life, ending outsized subsidies for pensioners
The Triple Lock on pensions should be scrapped to improve the life chances of white working-class boys, according to the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ).
The bold proposal – put forward as a solution to issues identified in its Lost Boys report published earlier this year – says that some of the billions saved should be redirected towards one of the most disadvantaged groups in society, while also reducing the burden of debt on future generations.
Boys are consistently behind girls in school, twice as likely to be unemployed, and over three times as likely to take their own lives and white working-class boys are the most likely to suffer.
In a new CSJ report, Lost Boys: Boyhood, researchers also link the massive breakdown in family stability to low academic achievement and worsening physical and mental health outcomes of white working-class boys.
About 2.5 million children in the UK – representing a fifth of all dependent children – have no father figure at home. As the report puts it: “Boys are more likely now to own a smartphone than to live with their dad.”
Just two in ten children in the poorest white quintile live with married parents compared to almost six in ten among poor children in non-white families, 20 per cent v 56 per cent.
The Triple Lock ensures that the State Pension rises by whichever is highest of inflation, earnings, or 2.5 per cent.
But campaigners argue that this protection has come at the expense of younger generations.
Tying future raises in the pension to the consumer price index, in line with other benefit payments, and bringing forward the planned age changes, means savings which rise to £8.4 billion in the final year of this parliament.
Redirecting some of this resource will reduce the size of the current intergenerational transfer from young to old, says the research.
The debate cuts to the heart of Britain’s social contract: should the comfort of today’s pensioners give way to the prospects of tomorrow’s workforce?
Despite rising awareness of the importance of the ‘early years’ and the £5.4bn of public funding spent on early years education each year, the situation is not improving for boys.
In a raft of proposals designed to transform the prospects of working class boys, the think tank calls for:
- Overhauling support in the early years: Childcare credits paid directly to parents, frontloading of child benefits, moving birth registrations to Family Hubs.
- Family Hubs investment: the local centres are one stop shops of support for families and children. The CSJ recommends reallocating £1 billion of savings to treble the expansion of hubs across the UK.
- Tackling problematic screen use: launching a public health campaign on the dangers of prolonged screen use in the early years.
- Boosting marriage: A transferable tax allowance for married couples and subsidised wedding costs for lower-income couples.
The authors stress that savings from the abolition of the Triple Lock should be used to close the deficit and reduce the long-term debt burden on future generations by slowing the pace of public borrowing and restoring sustainability to the public finances.
The CSJ will be releasing further reports in 2026 looking at older boys, secondary school, and the transitions from school to work.
Miriam Cates, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social Justice, said: “Resistance to focusing on families and young children in the UK manifests most clearly within the Triple Lock.
“Pensioners in the UK have been the principal beneficiary of fiscal policy choices for well over a decade, leaving spending on workers, children and young families frequently shrinking in comparison.
“This out-of-step growth has separated the fortunes of the old and young, morphed the UK into a gerontocracy, and contributed to the further atomisation of society.
“Therefore, as the centrepiece of funding for the following recommendations, we propose scrapping the Triple Lock.
“This transfer is a necessary social realignment to give both economic and political re-enfranchisement and support to children and young families, on whom our nation ultimately depends.”
Family instability – a key factor in holding back poor, white working-class boys – also has a strong class bias.
Almost nine in ten white children of parents in the wealthiest quintile live with married parents compared to just two in ten of the poorest.
Almost half of children aged 0-5 in the most disadvantaged areas have seen their families break up, compared to only 16 per cent of children in middle-class homes.
Marriage rates:
More than 90 per cent of children aged 15 who still live with both parents have parents who are married. This is despite half of children now born to unmarried parents.
In 1958 fewer than one in ten children did not live with both biological parents by the time they took their GCSEs. 12 years later, this had more than doubled to 21 percent. By the turn of the millennium almost half (45 per cent) of children this age lived with just one natural parent.
Almost half of children aged 0-5 in the most disadvantaged areas have seen their families break up, compared to only 16 per cent of children in middle-class homes.
