Lower D.P.B. age?

Press, 14 July 1982, Page 6

Lower D.P.B. age?

Parliamentary reporter The Government is considering lowering the age of a dependent child, now at 16 years, for which the parent is paid the domestic purposes benefit. This age might be lowered by several years, said the Minister of Social Welfare (Mr Young). The benefit cost New Zealand about $242.2 million in 1981-82 and at any one time supports about 40,000 families. Mr Young said he had considered the assumption that it was necessarily best for a mother to remain at

home full-time caring for a child until it was 16 years old. The basic intention of the benefit was that when the children were no longer dependent the parent was expected to become self-suffi-cient through entering or returning to the work-force. By the time the children were no longer dependent some of the women concerned were well into their 40s and their employment prospects grew dimmer as they got older. He was keen to see some form of job skill development programme or retraining programmes introduced

for such women. It might also be time for the benefit and the widows benefit to be amalgamated into one, with the same ’ criteria and benefits applying to both. It might also be appropriate to broaden the base to include widowers in the same way that men could receive the domestic purposes benefit, Mr Young said. While no action was proposed over adoption procedures, it might be time to examine them, even if no action was taken subsequently. It might be desirable to make them more flexible.