Single mothers' contact frequency with family and non-family members

Existing studies on single mothers' social contacts often examine small selective samples and are mostly cross-sectional. The lack of high-quality longitudinal survey data on this subject constrains the possibility to draw more generalizable conclusions. This paper exploits panel data to investigate whether transitions to single motherhood affect contact frequency. Fixed-effects models are used on the six waves of the German 'Socio-economic Panel' survey that contain social contact data (1990, 1995, 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013) for analyzing whether single motherhood is associated with changes in contact frequency with family and non-family members. Findings show that women transitioning to single motherhood maintain contact with family and non-family members. Single motherhood is unlikely to cause mothers' structural isolation. However, the absence of a second parent in the household neither seems to be connected with an increase in contact frequency with others. Providing a more generalised account of single mothers’ social contacts over time than previous research, the present study does not find evidence for a disintegrative effect of single motherhood.Soziale Kontakte alleinerziehender Mütter wurden empirisch bisher überwiegend anhand kleiner selektiver Stichproben und im Querschnitt betrachtet. Die Möglichkeit, die Zusammenhänge zu generalisieren, ist nicht zuletzt durch begrenzte Verfügbarkeit geeigneter Längsschnittdaten eingeschränkt. Dieser Artikel greift auf eine der verfügbaren Datenquellen zurück um zu untersuchen, inwiefern Übergänge ins Alleinerziehen mit Veränderungen in der familialen und außerfamilialen Kontakthäufigkeit einhergehen. Anhand von Panelregression mit den sechs Wellen des SOEP (1990, 1995, 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013), in denen die Kontakthäufigkeit erhoben wurde, werden die Auswirkungen des Übergangs ins Alleinerziehen ausgewertet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass familiale und außerfamiliale Kontakthäufigkeit für Frauen, die alleinerziehend werden, relativ stabil ist. Das bedeutet, dass strukturelle Isolation Alleinerziehender unwahrscheinlich ist. Allerdings weisen die Analysen auch darauf hin, dass die Abwesenheit eines zweiten Elternteils im Haushalt nicht durch Erhöhung der Kontakthäufigkeit mit anderen Personen ausgeglichen zu werden scheint. Die Studie bietet besser generalisierbare Hinweise darauf, dass nicht von einem einheitlichen 'Alleinerziehendeneffekt' auf die soziale Einbindung auszugehen ist

Family policy in comparative perspective: the concepts and measurement of familization and defamilization

Family policy is not easily conceptualized or measured in comparative research. Previous approaches are highly diverse and have yielded mixed empirical results in terms of placing countries’ family policy profiles in the international landscape and mapping their trajectories. This article reviews the long-standing discussion of the familization and defamilization concepts popular in comparative research, derives a conceptual framework and provides an in-depth discussion of current empirical approaches. It tackles the lacking consensus on how familization and defamilization are measured, arguing that interventions in gender-specific and intergenerational dependencies are the key dimensions and that measurement at policy level is best suited to capture within- and cross-country variation in family policy. Using data on 21 European countries, the article proposes measures that acknowledge the different dimensions of familization and defamilization. The proposed indicators prove to be useful for mapping a range of European countries’ family policy constellations but are bound by data restrictions. Therefore, the article makes a strong claim for improving the availability of internationally comparable family policy data

Housing conditions of single mothers in Europe: the role of housing policies

This study investigates housing conditions of single mothers in the context of housing policies. We study single mothers' probability to experience housing deprivation, overcrowded housing, overburdening costs of housing, and neighbourhood problems across European countries. We consider the structural consequences of home ownership rates, and policies related to regulation of rental markets, housing benefits and housing prices. We apply a multi-level framework to EU-SILC data on 21,937 single mothers, from 195 country-years and covering 21 European countries from 2008 to 2017. First, we find a trade-off in the provision of free housing or housing at reduced rents, that helps to reduce housing cost overburden for single mothers, but is also associated with higher rates of housing deprivation, overcrowding and neighbourhood problems. Next, in contexts with stricter rental market regulation, single mothers' housing deprivation is lower. Higher housing benefits reduce the risk of housing deprivation as well as overcrowding, but in contexts where home ownership is common, single mothers tend to experience more overcrowding. Single mothers are more likely to report neighbourhood problems in societies where housing prices are high. Our findings suggest that factors within the control of policy makers can be beneficial to the housing conditions of single mothers

Timing of single motherhood: implications for employment careers in Great Britain and West Germany

This thesis investigates how family–employment reconciliation issues associated with single motherhood affect women’s employment careers. The study fills a gap in the literature, which rarely considers single motherhood and employment as processes in the life course, much less in a cross-country comparative perspective. Patterns of employment trajectories during and after single motherhood are examined as the outcome of individual and institutional circumstances. Great Britain and West Germany are used as contrasting cases that represent relatively different contexts of labour market structures and family policy. Longitudinal individual-level data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) are analysed, looking at the period between and including 1991–2008. The thesis develops a theoretical model that assumes differential career outcomes for experiencing single motherhood at different life stages. Higher difficulties of family–employment reconciliation are predicted for women experiencing single motherhood at a young age compared to later stages. The acquisition of marketable resources, which stands in the context of education systems, is assumed to be one of the central mechanisms mediating the relationship between age at single motherhood and employment. Moreover, policies directed at single parents affect reconciliation, shaping opportunity structures on which women can draw in single motherhood. Compared to the German context, Britain provides little institutional support securing labour market attachment for women in single motherhood, particularly when their children are young. Although providing more generous family policy measures in comparison, West German maternity leave regulations are often not applicable to women in single motherhood, and childcare is mostly granted on a half-day basis. The findings from three steps of empirical analysis provide new insights and highlight specific facets of established facts. First, fixed effects logistic regression is used, which exposes a negative association between single motherhood and entering full-time employment. No differences are observed between partnered and unpartnered mothers, but effective childcare arrangements support women’s transition in both Britain and West Germany. The second step of the analysis explores employment career patterns during and after single motherhood using sequence analysis. The emerging typical patterns are observed to different degrees in the two country contexts. On average, more employment trajectories dominated by non-employment are observed in Britain and by part-time employment in West Germany. In the last step, these findings are used in an explanatory framework, the results of which provide evidence for the life stage hypothesis. The analysis demonstrates that not only social class but also mother’s age, children’s age and skill levels seem to foster employment stability and labour market attachment during and after single motherhood

Family policies' long-term effects on poverty: a comparative analysis of single and partnered mothers

This study investigates whether generous family policies at the transition to parenthood reduce single and partnered mothers’ economic disadvantages later in the life course. Previous research usually focused on the immediate effects of family policies and disregards potential longer-term effects. In this study, we suggest taking a life-course perspective to study the relationships between family policy and mothers' poverty risks. We empirically investigate how investment in child benefits, childcare services and parental leave measures at the transition to parenthood are associated with poverty outcomes at later life stages and whether these associations hold over time. We draw on pooled EU-SILC data, and an original policy dataset based on OECD expenditure data for child benefits, childcare and parental leave from 1994 to 2015. We find that mothers' observed increase in poverty over time is slower in countries with high levels of spending for childcare at the transition to parenthood than in lower spending countries. The gap between partnered and single mothers was also diminishing in contexts of high childcare expenditure. For the other two policies, we did not find these links. These results do lend support to the claim that childcare is a prime example of a social investment policy with returns later in the life course and represents a life-course policy that seems to be able to disrupt economic path dependencies. The results for the other two policies suggest, however, a limited potential of family policy spending at transition to parenthood to reduce the poverty gap between partnered and single mothers over the course of life

Konturen einer europäischen Reproduktionsordnung: Rezension zu "Politiken der Generativität" von Franziska Schutzbach

Franziska Schutzbach: Politiken der Generativität - Reproduktive Gesundheit, Bevölkerung und Geschlecht: Das Beispiel der Weltgesundheitsorganisation. Gender Studies. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2020. 978-3-8394-5022-2. https://doi.org/10.14361/978383945022

Összehasonlító családpolitika: a familizálás és defamilizálás fogalma és mérése

A komparatív kutatásokban nem könnyű a családpolitika értelmezése vagy mérése. Az eddigi próbálkozások nagyon különbözőek és vegyes empirikus eredményekhez vezettek, amikor nemzetközi összehasonlításban próbálták elhelyezni az egyes országokra jellemző sajátos családpolitikákat és fel akarták térképezni ezek fejlődési ívét. E tanulmány áttekinti a komparatív kutatásokban a familizálás és defamilizálás értelmezéséről hosszabb ideje folyó vitákat, felvázol egy elméleti keretet és részletesen ismerteti a jelenlegi empirikus kutatásokat. Foglalkozik azzal is, hogy miért nincs egyetértés a familizálás és defamilizálás méréséről. Ennek kapcsán azt állítja, hogy a nemekkel kapcsolatos és intergenerációs függőségeket érintő beavatkozások jelentik a középponti szempontokat, és hogy szakpolitikai szintű méréssel ragadhatók meg legjobban a családpolitikák országokon belüli és nemzetközi összehasonlító szempontú jellegzetességei. A tanulmány 21 európai ország adatait felhasználva olyan méréseket javasol, amelyek figyelembe veszik a familizálás és defamilizálás különböző dimenzióit. A javasolt indikátorok hasznosnak bizonyulnak az európai országok családpolitikai jellegzetességeinek feltérképezésében, alkalmazásuk azonban függ a rendelkezésre álló adatoktól. Ezért a tanulmány egyik fontos következtetése, hogy javítani kell a nemzetközileg összehasonlítható családpolitikai adatok hozzáférhetőségét

Choice in maternity care and childcare policies in the Netherlands and Germany

This paper investigates whether choice has gained importance as a political narrative and factually in care policies in Germany and the Netherlands since the late 1980s. Previous literature suggests that welfare reform introduced an increasing focus on choice in various policy areas in Bismarckian welfare states and beyond, but whether choice is a central aspect across different care policies is not well understood. We argue that choice is an important component for analysing change in family-related policies, because it reflects how much welfare states have moved towards supporting individualism in family arrangements. Moreover, economic as well as sociological research is interested in choice due to its association with quality of care and inequalities. By analysing maternity care policies alongside childcare policies, we also add a hitherto often neglected state intervention in family life, i.e. policies addressing pregnancy and childbirth

Konzepte und Messung von Familienpolitik im Ländervergleich

Zentrale theoretische Konzepte der vergleichenden Familienpolitikforschung wie Familisierung und Defamilisierung sind für empirische Anwendungen bisher wenig ausgearbeitet worden, obgleich das Interesse an Auswirkungen von Familienpolitik in den letzten Jahren merklich gestiegen ist. Die bestehende Literatur zur vergleichenden Familienpolitikforschung befasst sich hingegen häufig umfangreich mit den theoretischen Konzepten. Gerade im Vergleich zu der inzwischen vertieft geführten Diskussion zur Messung des Konzeptes der Dekommodifizierung, wird deutlich, dass Ansätze zur empirischen Umsetzung von (De-)familisierung bislang nur wenig aus methodischer Sicht thematisiert wurden. Beiträge, in der die Operationalisierung der Konzepte für die Anwendung in quantitativen Analysen verhandelt wird, sind selten. Dieser Beitrag fasst eigene Vorarbeiten zur Konzeptualisierung und Messung von De-/Familisierung zusammen und diskutiert mögliche folgende Schritte