BRITAIN’S generous unemployment benefits may be pushing families towards break-up, a new study has suggested.

High dole payments and the relative ease of qualifying for them mean unemployed people in the UK are far less dependent on the family than elsewhere.

The academics who compiled the research found benefit levels were higher and family cohesiveness lower in Britain than in any of the other countries studied — America, Italy and Spain.

“One possibility is that those [family] networks may have been weakened by the generosity of the welfare state in Britain,” said Samuel Bentolila, professor of economics at the Centre for Monetary and Financial Studies in Madrid, who led the research.

The new study adds to a growing body of research linking benefit payments to family break–up. A 14-country study earlier this year based on European Union figures found Britain had the highest rates of benefits for single mothers and the highest rate of lone-parent families in Europe, and argued that benefits provided an incentive for women to bring up a child alone.

The study found curbs on benefits in the other countries did not increase poverty. Intead, unemployed people in the other countries had incomes just as high as those on the dole in Britain, who are paid £57.45 a week in jobseeker’s allowance if they are 25 or over.

This suggests that in many cases unemployment benefits simply replace a “safety net” that the family is quite capable of providing. “Strong family networks are vital for a healthy society but are increasingly vulnerable in Britain,” said Anastasia de Waal, head of family research at the social affairs think tank Civitas. “These findings suggest lower benefits abroad have not resulted in greater deprivation.”

The study shows people in Britain are the least likely to live near relatives, share a home with family members or have older children living at home. Families in Spain are three times more likely to have a son or daughter over 25 living at home than in Britain.

Some of the most striking contrasts are with Italy, where unemployed people are nine times more likely to be helped by their relations than in Britain where only one in 100 receives family assistance.

Even in America, often assumed to have a social structure closer to that of Britain than that of Mediterranean countries, three times as many people are helped by their families as in this country.

Researchers also found three times as many people who are unemployed get state benefit in Britain compared with Italy.

Although the most recent data that are fully comparable come from the late 1990s, the researchers argue that the situation has hardly changed since then.

They found that 9% of unemployed Italian breadwinners received financial help from relatives living elsewhere, compared with 5% in Spain, 3% in America and just 1% in Britain.

Proportions of the unemployed getting benefits are also much lower in Italy and Spain than in the UK. Here, 79% get benefits compared with 27% in Italy, 57% in Spain, and 66% in America.

However, Chris Pond, chief executive of the National Council for One Parent Families, warned that the study should not be used as an argument to cut benefits.

“If we look at family make-up, the argument is often that lone parenthood is the result of generous benefits. But you then have to explain why the number of lone parents increased so sharply in the 1980s and early 1990s when welfare benefits were being restricted.”

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