“Guaranteeing the well-being of the children” stimulates one to compile the cost of the “guarantee”.
Some averages are necessary. The average minimum wage for an employee over 18 in Malta is €152.29. The average size of the Maltese family in 2010 was of 3.16 persons per family. If one equalises the needs of each family member, the child in this family costs 1.05 parts of the 3.16 members of the income of the family.
The average age of the child when parents divorce is of 7.8 years.
Hence, if the parents are to guarantee at least the financial well-being of their child, the parents must create and guarantee this finance upon the moment of signing the divorce agreement papers.
A simple multiplication implies that the parents must create a trust in the name of the child to the value of 1.05 / 3.16 of €152.29 (€48.19) per week for 52 weeks a year (€2,506.04) for at least 10.2 years, till the child is 18 (€25,561.61). One may factor in a five per cent inflationary rate per year and a 10 per cent trust administration. This adds up to a grand total of €29,395.85.
If guarantees mean that the child must have a bird in the hand and not await birds in the air to materialise somehow, then the child involved in a divorcing family, apart from being deprived of all the benefits of a family, however shaky and turbulent it is, must not be deprived of the monies essential to keep him at par with his friends at school. The parents need to create a trust in the child’s name, at least, to that value. If one of the parents is not a minimum wage earner, then the sum would need to be adjusted upwards accordingly. Similarly if there is more than one child.
If the money guarantees are not supplied by the parents, then once more it will be state, or rather you and I and the other 220,000 taxpayers, who will bear this brunt.
If one has to draw a parallel with the 8,000 odd-number of children born to single parents in the last 10 years, and with 40 per cent of marriages which end up in divorce after five years of marriage, as the trends show in all countries where divorce was introduced, then the same 220,000 will need to forfeit a considerably larger portion of their pay packet.
So, come divorce, kiss goodbye to your annual holiday abroad, wave away your monthly restaurant dinner, forget your weekend breaks, because the VAT rate will necessarily rise to 21 per cent and the basic tax rate must rise to the old 65 per cent of 25 years ago. If you are not at all worried about the divorce issue because you believe you are and will not be involved, it would be nice if you appreciate that your pocket is.
And I.M. Beck would need to cut his weekly culinary advice to at most one a month. The spending of the other three weekends will now be eaten up by the “welfare” state.