Vulnerability of lone mothers over the life course in Switzerland

2009

CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research - Zenodo, 2021

Sociology Compass, 2011

Almost 25% of Canadian families are headed by a lone parent (Jensen 2003) and over 90% of poor lone parents are women (National Council of Welfare 2002). In Canada lone mother-led families have been significantly impacted by two major and interrelated changes in Canada; welfare reforms that resulted in the elimination of a separate family benefit and includes the imposition of a work requirement combined with dramatic changes to the labor market. The reduction of welfare benefits and the increase in precarious or non-standard work have created a high level of social jeopardy for lone mothers and their children. This paper explores the different realms of life where lone-mothers are particularly disadvantaged and argues that governments need to clearly identify areas of policy intersection before the inequalities that lone mother-led families face can be ameliorated.

Lone Parenthood in the Life Course, 2017

A growing body of research links the rise in lone parent families to growing income inequality and poverty ). These studies suggest that changing family structures and in particular the rise in lone parent families accounted for up to two-fifths of the rise in US family income inequality (for a review see . However, as these studies use cross-sectional data they are not able to tell how well-off lone parent families would have been had they not become lone parents: those that become lone parents have been poor even if they were had not had children, or if they had remained living with a partner. In this chapter we address the question: to what extent is becoming a lone parent associated with worse economic outcomes for women? We do so by tracking women over a long period of time to see how they are influenced by (i) transitions to motherhood and (ii) partnership status. As authors such as Esping-Andersen ( ) have noted this first transition, the transition to parenthood, and its influence on women's employment and earnings appears to have an important impact of lone parent's later outcomes. Yet while a great deal of previous research has examined the effect of motherhood on women's earnings and employment (e.g. Harkness and Waldfogel 2003) far fewer studies have looked at the subsequent influence that these losses have on lone mothers' economic outcomes. The economic consequences of partnership status and, of particular relevance here, partnership dissolution, have been much more widely studied. These studies, with few exceptions, find that women, and in particular women with children, face substantial income losses as a result of partnership breakdown . While partnership breakdown and divorce are important routes into lone parenthood, a large share of those that experience lone motherhood become lone parents because they give birth to a child without co-residing with a partner. These "birth

Lone mothers are more likely to be unemployed and in poverty, which are both factors associated with a risk of poor health. In Switzerland, weak work-family reconciliation policies and taxation that favours married couples adopting the traditional male breadwinner model translate into low labour market participation rate for mothers. In the case of lone mothers, employment can be associated with better health because it eases the potential economic hardship associated with being the sole earner. However, working can represent an additional stress factor due to lone mothers’ responsibility as the main caregiver. We investigate how family arrangements and employment status are associated with self-reported health in Switzerland. Our analyses on the Swiss Household Panel (waves 1999-2011) suggest that lone mothers who are out of the labour market have a higher probability of reporting poor health, especially those with an upper secondary level of education. Lone mothers reported being in better health when working full-time versus part-time, whereas the opposite applied to mothers living with a partner.

1999

analyses changec in family structures and family policies in a long-term and comparative perspective in 20 countries in Europe and overseas. Primary output will be publication of a 7-volume-series on family changes and family policies, including five volumes with country studies and two comparative volumes. Another major objective is the built-up of a family policy data base which will include regularly updated time series. The project is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Related to this project, the European Commission finances a training and mobility programme of young researchers, which concentrates on recent developments of families in the European welfare states in comparative perspective.

The UK government has set two ambitious targets: one to increase lone-parent employment and the other to eradicate child poverty. This article focuses on policy approaches and recent reforms relating to lone-parent employment in five countries (Australia, France, the Netherlands, Norway, and the US) in order to place UK policy development in a wider context. It then focuses on two countries with different approaches to the issue of combining paid work and care work. Both the US and Norway can be described as countries with 'adult-worker' orientations but implemented in different ways, and with different outcomes for lone parents. We argue that if the UK government wishes to achieve both aims -increasing lone-parent employment and eliminating child poverty -it should look to the Norwegian rather than the North American model. This means that it will be necessary to consider the broader issues of gender and income inequality, as well as the specific policies related to lone-parent employment.

Lone Parenthood in the Life Course, 2017

In Germany as in many other western countries, lone parenthood is a common family form: a single parent heads every fifth family with children under age 18 (BMAS 2013: 5). There are, however, considerable differences between western and eastern Germany: in 2009, 17% of families in western Germany were headed by a lone parent, compared to 27% in eastern Germany (Lois and Kopp 2011). Around 90% of lone parent families are headed by a mother (BMAS 2013: 5), and most research on lone parents is on lone mothers. Lone parent families are a very heterogeneous group in terms of their socioeconomic characteristics, their path into lone parenthood, and the ways they perceive and cope with lone parenthood. Regardless of these differences, all lone parents face competing pressures of holding down a job while caring for their children. Because combining family life and work is challenging, especially without the support of a partner, lone parents are often unemployed. Currently in Germany, 40% of lone parent households are receiving transfer payments for the unemployed ("Grundsicherung für Arbeitssuchende") (BMAS 2013: 5), and about half of them have been receiving these payments for more than 4 years (Achatz et al. 2013: 12). Compared to couple families, lone parent families are more likely to live in poverty, and to report having high levels of stress and low levels of well-being (BMAS 2013). Lone parents and the long-term-unemployed are often designated as vulnerable groups. The concept of vulnerability describes a zone in which the risk of social downward mobility and poverty is high, and an individual's abilities and resources to cope with these social risks are limited (Vogel 2006). When a woman who is a lone parent and/or is long-term unemployed is faced with critical life events, chronic stresses, or environmental hazards, her resources are often not sufficient to buffer the strains; thus, she becomes increasingly vulnerable (Hanappi et al. 2015), and her disadvantages accumulate.

Social Policy & Administration, 2011

Analysis of poverty dynamics based on large-scale survey data shows that there is limited mobility across the income distribution for most individuals and families. This includes lone parents, who are one of the groups most likely to stay poor over time. This high income poverty risk is reduced for those lone parents who are in employment and who receive state financial support through tax credits to supplement their wages. But income security in work can be difficult to achieve. This article reports on longitudinal qualitative research which has involved repeat interviews with lone mothers and their children over a period of three to four years. The analysis explores the experiences of sustaining employment while living on a low, but complex, income and highlights the challenges faced in seeking financial security in this context.