Do people have big families to sponge of benefits?

it could be argued that some small families are started up just to get on the benefits ladder. if a big family can support itself then there's no reason to make such a statement. recent items in the news tend to colour people's opinions though.

i know some people who have large families, sometimes this is because two families joined together and all the kids went with the newly married parents, one case is sadly different (single mom, 4 kids by different fathers and i just don't know how or why or anything).

It seems to be the case that many who drain the welfare state of resources do have big families - it will not necessarily be the case that this is the motivation for all or indeed any of them.

I think some have children to secure housing but they tend to be very young. people with big families and people with small or no famillies may make a profession of claiming from the state or likewise supporting their families without ever claiming anything.

I guess I had a large family (5 children) but we had them because we wanted them and I always supported them myself with only minimal state benefits (Family Allowance).
At the time I moved around the country quite a bit and I found that the attitude to us did vary depending where we lived (more hostile in the south - not at all in the north).
When I say it was because we wanted them - this was not purely a selfish want - we did dig into population trends and statistics in some depth in order satisfy ourselves that we were not being antisocial. Even then there it was possible to see the beginnings of the aging population problem - much more widely recognised now.

One thing that is important to recognise is that the better calculation is the social benefits given to the children compared to what they will contribute in the future rather than what their parents contribute today. Looking at this we can see the real problem is not how many children a particular set of parents has but the social problems that prevents the children from growing up into useful & productive members of society.

Very, very few, indeed this is so rare that the case that most will refer to, illustrating this, is so rare as to be newsworthy. If it were commonplace, would TV news teams even bother?

There are plenty of instances where girls have become pregnant in order to get free housing and benefits.
These are the ones that make the headlines.
However, they are not LARGE families, so not of relevance to the question.


I think that on the whole, it's more likely the other way around.

People who like to live on welfare have more time on their hands, and occupy it by having/making families.

I come from a large family and absolutely enjoy it. I can not imagine being in a single parent family. My parents had a big family purely because they wanted children and for us to have brothers and sisters whom we can talk to, turn to and look out for and not for them to gain more money from the benefits.

That is a very low perception by certain people but hey this is just my opinion.

Depends entirely on the circumstances. If you have a large family and can support it, then not; if you are on benefits and then have a large family, then the statement does have some credibility. That's not true in all cases though and, as I said, it depends on circumstances. If you set out to have a large family and, through no fault of your own, you have to rely on benefits then that is what the system was designed to pick up. It's a safety net for those people who have been left in a situation where there is no other alternative but you have to excuse the uninformed, probably down to reading The Daily Mail?