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2 Disability, partnership and parentingPartnerships and parenthood have important effects on economic, social and psychological wellbeing. We provide new long-term analysis of how disability affects both parental status and partnerships. Analysis of the new Life Opportunities Survey, which is based on social model approaches, demonstrates that disabled people are more likely than non-disabled people to face disadvantages in terms of family formation. Disabled people are more likely to remain single over time, although there is lesser evidence of any differences in rates of relationship breakdown for those who enter them. Allied to these conclusions, disabled adults are less likely to form households where there are dependent children. These conclusions are supported by longitudinal results from the British Household Panel Survey.

English Community care policy has, simultaneously, attempted to reduce institutional care, contain costs, and emphasise individual and family responsibility for personal welfare. As a result, disabled people often have no choice about relying on informal carers for the support that enables them to live in their own homes. The implications of New Labour’s emphasis on “work for those who can, security for those who can’t” and of third way emphasis on obligations are explored for carers and disabled people. Both stand to lose from these emphases. Joint campaigning, informed by a common theoretical model, may have more to offer than separatism.

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During the first decade of the twenty-first century, UK policy and practice has become increasingly overt in its concern with families. In January 2010, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF, 2010) launched the Support for All: The Families and Relationships Green Paper. In its Foreword, Ed Balls, the then Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, presented ‘Strong, stable families’ as ‘the bedrock of our society’, positioning the Green Paper as ‘supporting families to help themselves’, whilst ‘ensuring that all public services play their part in supporting strong and resilient family relationships’ (DCSF, 2010: 3). The Centre for Social Justice offered an immediate response with its own Green Paper on the Family, emphasising the role of ‘family breakdown’ as ‘the root’ of ‘pathways to poverty’ for many, as well as a barrier to appropriate childhood development and positive ‘future life outcomes’ (Centre for Social Justice, 2010: 4).