Single Parent Families In Canada

The Canadian family has been changing drastically over the 20th century. The definition of family has changed, along with the functions of families. Many modern families have veered from what we once considered the tradition family. This essay will discuss the different types of newly developed families, and some factors contributing to this change.

According to the National Council of Welfare, The majority of those who rely on social assistance in Canada tend to be women, children and people with disabilities, it is noted that government policy focus on getting them into the paid workforce without adequate supports such as childcare, housing, and money for basic expenses, these policies are considered to be unrealistic and create much misery for the Canadians that are forced to live under these policies (Women, 2007). According to Census 2000, the average annual pre-tax income of women from all sources including government transfers was $22,885 or 62% that of what men receive. In Canada, female lone parent families have by far the lowest average total incomes among families. Although women continue to be among the poorest of the poor in Canada, they make up a disproportionate share of the population with low income 2.4 million women in 2001 compared to 1.9 million men (Work, 2004).

The issue of the cost of raising children affects the canadian family because the canadian family is now only one to maybe two children, where before it was between three to maybe four children or more. As with the cost of raising children is going up people are only want to have a few child so they are able to afford everything for them so the canadian family is getting smaller and smaller. Also to maintain paying the bills and caring for your children both parents need to work so all of the needs can be met. Or a single mother or father may have to work longer days and hours. So children now have different roles at home as the parents might not always be their. Child have to be more self-reliant and grow up fastest and parents reliable

Canada is a country that is undergoing advancements in all regions day-to-day. This growth has also changed the mentality of people towards getting married and having kids, there has been a drastic decrease in the fertility rate of Canada during the last 100 years; furthermore, the shrinkage of families are linked to factors like medical advancements, economic trends, historical and psychological reasons etc. We will discuss some of the major factors a family takes into consideration while planning about expanding their family.

Lone-parent families struggle to get social assistance from the government because of the welfare policies. Single parents lack affordable childcare with long waiting list, no available space, but if available, it is likely to be costly for single parents to afford. High quality regulated child care is inaccessible to single parent families, and it is not contested; in addition, Canada’s public funding for childcare is very low, consequently, the quality is not as high as it should be. Furthermore, they lack drug and dental benefits and of full time well paid employment, have made it difficult if not impossible for many single parents, as they struggle to balance the competing demands of caring for and providing support for their children.

The social problem impacts children in Toronto ages 6-18. Divorce, as the center of this paper is defined as a separation and a practice that lot of people goes through in life. It is also known as dissolution or termination of marriage, and or the annihilation of a marriage or marital union. (Insert). This continues to escalate over the years and therefore become a somber social problem; though it is a slow process but eventually results in families to fall apart. Nevertheless, there are many facets in which a marriage could fall-apart and end up in divorce, and the effects are enormous and enduringly deteriorate the tie or relationship between child and parents. According to statistic Canada divorce rate for couples, ages 50 to 54 is 38%,

One of the most common trend in Canada is there are as many stepfamily parents as lone parents. Of the 9.3 million, 20-64-year-old parents- 9.7% were lone and 10.7% were stepparents. One of the outcomes of marital disintegration, when kids are included is that they may separate their time between their folks. This is a critical issue since it influences the family to arrange and the daily lives of the kids and grown-ups specifically or in a roundabout way included. Stepfamily parents were more likely than in place parents to have kids under 25 living at home low maintenance., 32% of guardians in stepfamilies had kids living at home piece of the time,

In the United States around 82.2% of custodial parents are mothers; 30.4% of them and their children lived in poverty in the year 2009 (Wolf, 2017). The gender gap in the workplace can keep a single mother from being able to fully get out of poverty. A single mother earns less than a single father does. In the year 2015 it was noted that single mothers earned 70.7% of the income single fathers had earned (Industry Week Staff, 2017). It is harder for a single mother, who may have never been married to begin with, to invest in schooling when she is trying to cover the costs of her children and

Having enough money to support each family member is essential to ensure the well-being of every individual in a family. A Statistics Canada summary of family income, by family type, states that in the time period of 2010 to 2014, the median income for couple families (a couple living together with or without children) was $10,000 and over. Through the duration of those years, an average of 8,000,118 Canadian couple families earned $10,000 and over. These numbers can be compared to the Statistics Canada summary of family income, by family type for lone-parent families in the years 2010 to 2014. This summary states that the median income for lone-parent families (a family with only one parent and at least one child) was $5,000 and over. An average of 1,345,764 Canadian lone-parent families earned $5,000 and over. Overall, the average median total income through the duration of 2010 to 2014 for couple families in Canada was $81,790. This is more than twice the average median income from 2010 to 2014 for lone-parent families, which is $39,292. These statistics coincide with the hypothesis that on average, families with two parents will succeed more financially than families with only one

Over the last few decades, the world has drastically changed, and the effect on the family dynamic has been profound. Today, there are more single parents, dual earner couples, and parents with more than one job living in both rural and urban areas in the United States than at any time in history

In the United Kingdom, family structures and sizes are changing gradually. There are different types of family like nuclear families, lone parent families, cohabiting families, foster families and so on. Family changes have caused a dramatic effect on British society. In recent years the marriage rate has decreased. Moreover, divorce rate is high in this country. Teenage pregnancy is also a frequent occurrence. These changes have a significant effect on child poverty. The recent review of the literature, on children of divorced parents, done by Rodgers and Pryor in 1998, has argued that they are more likely to be in poverty and to be poorer when they are adults. (May, Page & Brunsdon, 2000, 38) Furthermore, research done by Adelman and Bradshaw

In Canada, 1,527,840 families have a single parent home. In the world, 320 million children live in a single parent home. Having two parents doubles the amount of role models in the home. Having one parent does influence a child’s life greatly. In the novel Spoiled, Molly Dix grew up with only a mother, and Brooke Berlin grew up having her celebrity father who was unavailable most of the time, while her mother had left her father and herself at a very young age. The novel proved how important it was having a healthy parent relationship with their child, even with only one parent, and how it affected both girls’ lives. Having a single parent home can alter a child’s behaviour in their social life, mental and physical state.

In fact, majority of single mothers are receiving inadequate income support from employment that employed single mothers are earning poverty wages compared to educated single fathers and married men. The study shows that “between 1979 and 2009, 34% of employed single mothers were both employed at a low wage and in a family with a low income, compared to 18% of employed single fathers, 11% of employed married fathers, 8% of employed married mothers, and 12% of the employed population as a whole. In 2009, 39% of employed single mothers were in low-wage employment, and 36% of employed single mothers were both low-wage earners and in a family with a low income” (Casey and Maldonado, 2012, p. 9).

During the years, single parent families have become a more common thing. This is starting to become a problem, because family dynamics can really influence a child’s life. According to studies it affects not only the child but the parents too.

In the last 50 years or so, family life has changed becoming more diverse and complex, which has been the source of research by social scientists especially the effects of divorce on children. Marriage is no longer an institution that couples need to suffer if times are difficult, divorce is easier and cohabitation is more morally acceptable. The ideology of the nuclear family whilst not outdated is not the only type of family in which to raise children. The modern more complex family arrangements include step families, lone parents, step sibling