The triple bind of single-parent families: resources, employment and policies

The days when Tolstoy opened Anna Karenina with ‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’, to reect a dominant discourse on the nuclear family as the singular form of happiness and wellbeing, are long gone. Alongside the second demographic transition – women gaining economic independence and better control over their fertility, improvements in gender equality and changing norms on family and gender – a diversity of family forms emerged. Wellbeing and happiness, as well as unhappiness, can be found in all families, regardless of family structure. This challenges the assertion that any one family form will always ensure wellbeing over another. Indeed, as Myrdal and Klein noted in 1956: ‘Though it is fairly easy to describe what constitutes a bad home, there is no simple definition of a good one. Conformity with the traditional pattern certainly is no guarantee of the happiest results’ (p.126)

Single-Parent Families and In-Work Poverty

Single-parent families face unique challenges when it comes to in-work poverty. Without a second caregiver and earner, single parents have to compete with dual-earner couples for their position in the earnings distribution. Facing precarious employment and gendered wage inequality, single-parent families face a high risk to experience poverty even when they are working. This chapter presents empirical evidence on in-work poverty and inadequate wages in the policy context of 18 OECD countries. The impact of family structure, occupation, regulations of part-time work, paid parental leave, and various redistributive policies are examined. We distinguish three distinct patterns of performance in countries' approach to in-work poverty among single parents: A balanced approach of ensuring low inequality on the labor market combined with redistribution, an unbalanced approach of combating in-work poverty mostly through redistribution, and an approach in which high inequality on the labor market is compensated with redistributive policies only to a very limited extent. Countries that rely on a balanced approach to reduce inequality on the labor market, both with respect to class and gender, combined with an adequate level of redistribution, seem best situated for a durable reduction of poverty among working single parents

The Triple Bind of Single-Parent Families: Resources, employment and policies to improve wellbeing

Editors: Rense Nieuwenhuis and Laurie C. Maldonado Authors are listed in order of appearance in text. Author/Editor details at time of book publication. Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book presents evidence from over 40 countries that shows how single parents face a triple bind of inadequate resources, employment and policies, which in combination further complicate their lives. This book - multi-disciplinary and comparative in design - shows evidence from over 40 countries, along with detailed case studies of Sweden, Iceland, Scotland, and the UK. It covers aspects of well-being that include poverty, good quality jobs, the middle class, wealth, health, children’s development and performance in school, and reflects on social justice. Leading international scholars challenge our current understanding of what works and draw policy lessons on how to improve the well-being of single parents and their children. Also available through Bristol University Press.https://digitalcommons.molloy.edu/fac_book/1001/thumbnail.jp

Family policies and single parent poverty in 18 OECD countries, 1978–2008

In this study, we examined to what extent family policies differently affect poverty among single-parent households and two-parent households. We distinguished between reconciliation policies (tested with parental leave and the proportion of unpaid leave) and financial support policies (tested with family allowances). We used data from the Luxembourg Income Study Database, covering 514,019 households in 18 OECD countries from 1978 to 2008, combined with data from the Comparative Family Policy Database. Our findings suggest that single- and two-parent households are less likely to be poor in countries that have longer parental leave, a smaller proportion of unpaid leave, and higher amounts of family allowances. Most notably, family policies reduced poverty to a greater extent among single-parent households. Paid leave more effectively facilitated the employment of single parents, thereby reducing their poverty more than among two-parent households. Family allowances decreased the risk of poverty of single-parent households relative to two-parent households in the Nordic countries, the Netherlands and Belgium, while increasing this relative risk in for instance Luxembourg, France, Germany and Ireland. Nevertheless, in absolute terms, in most countries family allowances were found to reduce a larger share of the poverty among single-parent households than among two-parent households