Happily ever after: Pro-marriage campaigner Harry Benson and his wife Kate, who argue that policy must be changed to support married couples

Children are more likely to be in single-parent families in Britain than anywhere else in Western Europe, figures have revealed.

Almost one in four live with a lone mother or father, compared to about one in six across the rest of the EU.

Britain is now ahead of Belgium, Denmark, Ireland and France, where the number of youngsters living with just one parent is dropping – or rising more slowly.

The figures point to the dramatic impact of family breakdown and have been linked to a ‘meteoric rise’ in cohabiting relationships.

A pro-marriage group is calling on politicians to do more to encourage couples to wed – and stay together.

The Marriage Foundation obtained a breakdown of the most recent figures – for 2012 – from the EU’s statistics arm Eurostat.

According to its analysis published yesterday, 24 per cent of dependent children in the UK lived in single-parent families – up three percentage points on 2010 and marginally ahead of Belgium.

The figure for Belgium, rounded to 24 per cent by Eurostat, was up by just two percentage points since 2010. In Denmark, France and Ireland, the percentage fell.

The only EU country with a higher figure than Britain was the eastern state of Latvia, where sky-high divorce rates have pushed up the number of single parents.

In Britain, by contrast, divorce rates have been falling and family break-up is largely a matter of collapsing cohabiting relationships.

Harry Benson, of the Marriage Foundation, said: ‘While most lone parents do an amazing job with fewer resources, few have chosen lone parenthood as their lifestyle choice.

'Our research clearly shows that in the UK’s case – and that of other countries in Western Europe – this rising rate of lone parenthood is a symptom not of a rising divorce rate, but instead by the meteoric rise in the numbers of children brought up by unmarried parents.’

He said it was ‘essential’ for policymakers to face up to the realities of a generation brought up in single-parent households to avert a ‘host of negative social and economic implications’.

He added: ‘Western Europe policy must focus on supporting existing marriages. Being brought up in a stable two-parent household is essential in affording children the decent start in life they deserve.’

The number of British children in lone-parent families rose rapidly in the 1980s, helped by rising divorce rates and increasing numbers of single young women who chose to bring up children alone with help from the benefits system.

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However, divorce rates in Britain started falling in the 1990s and are now back to mid-1970s levels.

The Marriage Foundation report said: ‘While the phrase “lone parenthood” is a good indicator of the trend, it understates the full extent of family breakdown, as many lone parents go on to form new relationships.

‘Those who do so have still experienced family breakdown, but are no longer classified as lone parents.’ Children who have been through break-ups are said to be less likely to do well at school and more likely to suffer from adverse effects such as poor physical and mental health, unemployment and drug abuse and crime.

Couples are married in only 56 per cent of British families, according to the results of the 2011 national census. Meanwhile, the number of cohabiting couples with children has risen to more than a million.

Such relationships are estimated to be three times more likely to end in break-up than marriages, and a typical cohabiting relationship that does not lead to marriage lasts no more than three years.

Marriages, by contrast, last 11 years on average and a high proportion of couples are separated only by death.

David Cameron has spoken regularly about the need to encourage marriage. But so far Coalition ministers have offered only a minor tax break, worth up to £200 a year, to lower-income married couples.