MEN AND FAMILY BREAKDOWN

Dads Against Discrimination Inc
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MEN AND FAMILY BREAKDOWN

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Submission to the Family Law Pathways Advisory Group

By Peter Vogel, Editor, Certified Male Magazine

Summary

Family breakdown is the greatest social issue facing the Australian male population. It will adversely affect the wellbeing of more men than any of the currently recognised health priority areas or other life event.
Poor management of family breakdown and its fallout are causing unnecessary damage to Australian men and their families.
Although it is widely recognised that there is a crisis, very little has been done to find ways of ameliorating the problems.
Family law is a gendered issue and hence must be approached from a male-gender perspective as well as a female-gender perspective.
The greatest need in improving outcomes for men and their families is professional, coordinated research to identify the particular issues faced by men undergoing family breakdown and their solutions, as well as advocacy to ensure that necessary changes are implemented.

Quantifying the problem facing men
The Risks

A man getting married in Australia today and having children faces the following risks:

33% risk that his marriage will end before his children are reared ⁽¹⁾

20% risk that his marriage will end against his will ⁽²⁾

30% risk that his children will not be living with him until they are reared ⁽³⁾

22% risk that he will be separated from his children against his wishes ⁽⁴⁾

10% risk that he will have no contact with his children by the time they are adult ⁽⁵⁾
Compare these figures with other health problems:

A man’s lifetime risk of losing contact with his children is twice that of contracting lung cancer ⁽⁶⁾

Young separated men are 10 times more likely to die by suicide than through road accident ⁽⁷⁾

The suicide rate among separated men is more than double the rate of contracting AIDS for all men and 35 times higher than the risk of contracting AIDS through heterosexual contact ⁽⁸⁾
The numbers

In Australia, each day:

77 fathers separate from their child’s mother ⁽⁹⁾

71 of these 77 fathers will not be living with their children five years later ⁽¹⁰⁾

52 of these 71 fathers are denied the amount of contact with their children that they desire ⁽¹¹⁾

On average, at least one separated man suicides every day ⁽¹²⁾

In Australia today:

There are 558,000 non-custodial fathers who are denied as much contact with their children as they would like ⁽¹³⁾

The unemployment rate amongst separated fathers is roughly triple the national average⁽¹⁴⁾

About 1,000,000 children do not live with both parents. Only 2.6% of these children are cared for by both parents. 300,000 children see their father less than once a year. ⁽¹⁵⁾

Discussion

Family breakdown is very much a gender issue. There is much debate as to whether the Family Court is gender biased in terms of contact and property outcomes. That question is not relevant to this submission, because whether or not there is systematic gender bias in the process, it is clear that the outcomes for men as a group are enormously different from those for women as a group.

That is, whether or not Family Law itself is biased, the fact remains that family law is a significantly gendered issue.

It is not hard to draw up a list of gender-based outcome disparities. On just about every measure, differences between men’s outcomes and women’s outcomes are measured not in small percentages but in factors of ten. Post-separation suicide, child residence arrangements, child support payments, property awards are just a few examples of these gender differences.

It is hard to imagine any other area of social study where it is so easy to predict outcomes based on gender.

Yet in spite of the huge numbers of men affected, and devastating outcomes for both fathers and their children, there is no government-funded men’s advocacy.

It will surprise no-one to find that submissions to this Enquiry will include many from women’s organisations, presenting a female perspective on family law issues. Some of these submissions will have been prepared by organisations that are government funded and staffed by paid researcher, policy analysts and other professionals. Their submissions will be substantial and supported by considerable research. There will be no comparable input from men’s organisations, as there are no comparable government-funded men’s agencies.

The men’s advocacies that do exist rely on volunteer labour and goodwill. Members come and go - sadly, some organisations report that the biggest problem is suicide of members. Their effectiveness is therefore severely limited.

The need for a professionally staffed men’s advocacy is starkly highlighted by the composition of the Family Law Pathways Advisory Group; there is no representative of a men’s advocacy organisation in the advisory group. It will no doubt be suggested by others that this is a deliberate attempt to "stack" the enquiry in to ensure findings that are not contrary to the wishes of women’s groups. However, it is clear to me that even with the best will in the world it would be impossible to find advisors for your group who could properly present the issues as a men’s advocate, because no such persons exist.

There so many issues, they affect so many men from so many backgrounds, and the consequences are often nothing less than life-and-death, yet there is no organised effort to research this area in sufficient depth to even get a broad picture of the problem, let alone propose best practice.

In view of the fact that men are roughly 10 times more likely than women to find personal disaster at the end of the "family law pathway" this is a sorry state of affairs indeed.

Recommendation

The most valuable single action the Family Law Pathways Advisory Group could recommend is the establishment of a Men and Family Research Office.

Until such a body exists, enquiries such as the present one will be a fruitless waste of taxpayers’ money, since the research and policy analysis required to realistically address an issue of such widereaching scope simply cannot be provided by well-meaning amateurs, forced into the role of social researcher, psychologist and lawyer by being sucked into the vortex of family law. Findings of the Family Law Pathways Advisory Group based on such limited consideration of males, the gender which is so overwhelmingly dissatisfied by the present "pathways", will inevitably further fuel the perception that men have no voice in family law matters.

A Men and Family Research Office would perform at least the following functions:

Gather and analyse studies of relationship and family issues from a male perspective
Continually consult with and receive submissions from men’s groups and individuals concerned about family matters
Provide informed input to government and non-government bodies, including the Family Court
Provide spokesmen for media debate and information
Identify and promote best practice
Promote the importance of positive fathering in children’s lives
Administer funding for non-government men’s organisations

Monitor and advise on the impact of government policies and programmes on men

The Men and Family Research Office would be ideally placed to answer all the questions posed by this enquiry. For example, they would be fully conversant with the range and nature of difficulties men face when confronted with relationship breakdown, barriers to access to services and support, and customer service issues.

In particular, the Office could identify best practice that has been shown to make a positive difference in assisting families facing relationship breakdown.

Establishment of a Men and Family Research Office would be the single most cost-effective step this government could take towards answering the call for recognition of the special needs of men confronted with relationship breakdown, parenting, family law or child-support issues.

Peter Vogel, 4th September 2000

References

Data sources used to obtain the figures in this submission:

One third of marriages end in divorce before the children are reared (Justice Fogarty, speech to Student Welfare Conference 11 June 1998)
In 62% of cases the husband did not want the separation (The Effects of Marital Separation 10 years on, Family Court of Australia Research Report no. 14.) so risk of marriage ending against the man’s will is 33% x 62% or 20%.
5 years after separation, in 92% of cases at least one child of the marriage is not living with the father (Remaking Families, AIFS 1996) so risk of marriage ending and children not living with the father is 33% x 92% or 30%.
73% of separated fathers want increases in contact (Non-custodial fathers and Access Patterns Jan Gibson 1992 Research Report #10 Family Court of Australia)
29.8% of children see their non-resident parent less than once per year (Family Characteristics ABS report 4442.0 1997)
Lifetime risk of contracting lung cancer for males is 1 in 19 (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 1998), compared to 1 in 10 risk as per ref. 5 above.
Death rate for transport-related injuries for males 15-24 is 31.5 per 100,000 population (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 1998). Varying rates of suicide associated with relationship breakdown have been estimated by a number of researchers. The rate ranges from 54 per 100,000 (Suicides Australia ABS Publication No 3309.0) for divorced men to 110 per 100,000 (Marital breakdown, parenthood and suicide, Cantor and Slater, Journal of Family Studies, Oct 1995.) for separated men.
A recent Australian study found that in 73% of suicides for which data was available, a relationship breakdown occurred less than one month before the death (Suicides in Queensland: A comprehensive study 1990-1995 Australian Institute for Suicide Research & Prevention 1998). There were a total of 1931 male suicides in 1996 (Causes of Death, ABS publication 3303.0 1996). Using these figures, a total of 1409 male suicides in 1996 were associated with relationship breakdown. During the same period, there were 555 new cases of AIDS reported, 7.2% of which were through heterosexual contact (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 1998)
There are 52,000 divorces per annum 28,000 involving children or 77 per day (Marriages and divorces, ABS publication no. 3310.0 1996)
71 = 77 x 92% - see ref. 3 above.
51 = 71 x 73% - see ref. 3 and 4 above.
From figures cited in ref 8 above the rate is 1409/365 = 3.8 per day.

Conservative estimates of the population of separated men:

There are 448,000 CSA clients plus an estimated 121,000 private arrangements or 569,000 total (Taxation Statistics 1995-96, ATO). In 1996 there were 423,500 divorced men and 27% of births were ex-nuptial. (Marriages and divorces, ABS publication 3310.0 1996). It can be assumed that as well as the 423,000 divorced men there are at least another 27% separated men or 538,000.

Using these population figures, and the suicide rate for separated men as per ref. 7 above, the suicide range is 110 x 5.38 p.a. to 110 x 5.69 p.a. or 1.6 to 1.7 per day.

The Child Support Agency has 574,000 non-custodial parents on their books (CSA Client Profile Series No 1) which represents 69% of non-custodial parents, the balance being private agreements. This equates to 832,000 total non-custodial parents. 92% of these are male, or 765,000. 73% of these are dissatisfied with their limited contact with their children (ref 4 above) giving a total of 765,000 x 73% or 558,000.
58% of men separated in the early 1980's as per ref 17 below, had changed their jobs and 22% had been unemployed for more than a year in the past 10 years. 30% of CSA cases show "no liability" which means income less than $9,006 per annum (CSA Client Profile Series No 1).
978,400 children live in the sole care of one parent. 29.8% or 291,000 of these children see their non-resident parent less than once per year. 2.6% of children with separated parents are cared for in shared arrangements. (Family Characteristics ABS report 4442.0 1997)

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