Long Hours Cause Materialistic Parenting

A report by a worldwide charity into European parenting, has claimed the increase in working hours in the UK have caused a "materialistic culture" as parents don't spend enough time with their families.

The report, published on Tuesday evening, involved speaking to hundreds of families in the UK, Sweden and Spain. It found that parents in the UK said they felt "tremendous pressure" from society to buy goods for their children; most acutely in low-income homes.

Although the report said UK parents were committed to their children, they lost out on time together as a family due in part to long working hours.

"They often try to make up for this by buying their children gadgets and clothes," the report said.

The findings of the report confirm the views of commentators who attributed this year's London riots to "out of control" consumerism and materialism.

In August, a leading City broker and global head of research at international brokerage firm Tullett Prebon, Tim Morgan, blamed an "out-of-control consumerist ethos" for the rioting, saying: "The dominant ethos of 'I buy, therefore I am' needs to be challenged by a shift of emphasis from material to non-material values."

The Unicef report supported the idea that the riots, which saw thousands of London teenagers engage in unprecedented looting, could have been caused by over-consumerism.

"Right now politicians are grappling with the aftermath of the riots and what they say about our society, culture and families," said David Bull, the Unicef UK Executive Director. "The research findings provide important insights, and it is vital that those in power listen to what children and their families are saying about life in the UK."

The report added: "Consumer culture in the UK contrasts starkly with Sweden and Spain, where family time is prioritised, children and families are under less pressure to own material goods and children have greater access to activities out of the home."

In light of its research, Unicef UK said it was calling on the UK Government to encourage businesses to pay a living wage, so parents didn't have to take on several jobs, insist local authorities assess the impact of public spending cuts on children, and follow Sweden's ban on advertisements being shown before, during or after programmes aimed at under-12s.

The research by Ipsos MORI for Unicef UK was a follow up to the charity's report in 2007 that ranked the UK bottom in child well-being compared to other industrialised nations.

(DW/CD)