The single-child ‘tax’ is real – and it’s a scandal ...Middle East

Britain is now a one-child nation. There are 3.7 million one-child families in the UK, which is about 45 per cent of families. That makes my own two adult, one-child family normal. Totally average. On trend.

Yet everything from ticket prices to Christmas adverts pretends this isn’t the case. Two-child families make up just 41 per cent, yet we treat it as the social default.

On a recent trip to the zoo, a “family ticket” was for “two adults and two children”. And at a local bonfire display, it was the same. Legoland tickets, holiday, family hotel stay – every time, a family equals two adults and two children. Even the ads have the same happily smiling mum and dad, boy and girl. That’s what a family is supposed to look like.

Or god, the matching family Christmas pyjama sets. Two parents and their mini versions in matching sets. I am short one boy. And it’s funny that this idea of the nuclear family has prevailed, because the 2.4 kids thing hasn’t been the average since the 1960s. We were close with 1.9 kids in the 2010s, but since then it’s declined to 1.4.

When will society, and family pricing, catch up with our new normal? Because it’s estimated that by 2031, half of all UK families will be raising just one child.

Like the “single tax” – the extra financial burden single people face because they don’t share household costs with a partner – families with one child are left paying the “single child tax”. When we go to the zoo, we do not count as a family. We pay as individuals. Sometimes we buy the family ticket because it works out cheaper, even though we don’t have the surplus child which is even more annoying because my friend pays the same amount for her two kids as I do my one. We’re a family of three, but we pay for four.

Something about it really stings, and I don’t just mean wallet-wise. It’s a reminder that your family doesn’t count. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have that extra child that you might quite like. Especially when you’re asked questions, like “only the one?”, as though one is not enough. No one asks “only the two?” or “just the three?”.

I wish that they could just knock 25 per cent off a family ticket. That would be better. We are one person fewer: 25 per cent less of a family, so 25 per cent less money please. I don’t want to crash out over ticket prices, but kids’ attractions are already so extortionate that it’s hard not to feel a little salty.

The world has adapted to single travellers. Hotels and holiday packages used to have a “single supplement” which meant solo travellers had to pay more. Now, they’ve adapted to accommodate the growing numbers of single people. We have reduced council tax for homes with single occupancy too.

Virgin Voyages offers a “Reduced Single Supplement” deal: if one person travels in a double-occupancy cabin on select voyages, they apply a discount to avoid paying full double-person fare.

I’ve seen hotels launch campaigns which offer discounted stays targeted specifically for single travellers, the rooms only available to book for single occupancy.

If we can adapt for single people, why not single child families? It’s the way things are headed, and in fact, we’re basically already there. Why isn’t society?

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