Family ways
The great increase in illegitimate births — up from 55,400 in 1978 to 99,200 this year, a figure which represents 16 per cent of all live births — suggests, if anything, that women are nowadays taking the in- stitution of marriage more seriously, in as much as they refuse to marry the fathers of their children if they suppose the marriage will not last. Of course this is a choice that can only be made by women who can do without men's money; and in this context
the decision by the Employment Appeals Tribunal that a woman has, in certain jobs at least, a legal right to work part-time so as to look after her children may prove far more important than what is decided in the Commons. The trouble is that any improve- ment in the conditions of single parent families will tend to increase the divorce rate, but any government which believes that the family is the best place for children must try in some way to help the children who for one reason or another must get by with only one parent. Yet the more you help them, the more of them there will be.
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