The Problem Of Lone Motherhood

The new labour has introduced laws which benefit the family, one of the laws being allowing adoption amongst cohabiting couples and gay couples. In effect this will mean other family types will be able to have children this will lead to a decline in nuclear families because couples will not have to marry to have to adopt children. For example a cohabiting couple are unable to pay the expenses of a wedding and they cannot have babies due to fertility issues therefore the new law will help them adopt a child without marriage. In addition to laws introduced by the new labour, they have also increased welfare by re-distributing income to increase welfare to help lower income families afford food and clothing. For example a mother with three children cannot finically support herself with one job and benefits, but due to the increase in welfare benefits, she is now able to support herself. Although other sociologist would disagree with these introductions of social policies,

In the UK, particularly in England and Wales, children’s life chances are determined by the economic status of the families into which they are a part of. Children from poor households are more likely to suffer the consequences of their families’ condition. They will have to endure the stigma of poverty in a profoundly lopsided society where the socioeconomic standing of individuals is determined by their capacity to buy. These poor children also have less access to quality educational opportunities (Welbourne, 2012). Furthermore, children living in poverty at present are likely to remain poor for the rest of their lives because of intergenerational cycles of poverty

The effects of the 1996 welfare reform bill helped declined caseloads on the social and economic well-being of fragile families, single mothers, and children. Although, the welfare reform was documented for making several positive changes such as reducing poverty rates, lowering the out of-wedlock childbearing, and formulated a better family structure, it is undeniable that poverty remained high among single mothers and their children. The reality of the matter was that most welfare recipients experienced serious barriers to maintain a stable employment due to their lack of skills, not having anyone available to take care of their young children when they leave for work as well as not gaining long-time employment with decent pay to help foster the family. As a result, most poor women and children were faced with the instability of economic and social future as welfare eligibility exhausted their efforts of supporting their families.

They do not have a significant other 37 percent of single-parents families lack self sufficiency and are officially poor compared with 7 percent of married-couple families (Rector). Welfare can help the underachieving single parents that do not have a stable income. This proves and shows that some individuals can and want to be

Single mothers are struggling with only one job to make enough for a living for herself and her child. Single mothers are working very hard for very low pay. Mothers that are living paycheck to paycheck and are pushing their budget to the max eventually have to start applying for government assistance (Alexa). “Passing the Raise the Wage Act would especially help women, particularly women of color. Women are the majority (56 percent) of workers who would benefit from increasing the federal minimum wage to $12 by 2020”(Cooper, Gallagher,Vogtman). Single Women have to create strategies to make ends meet on low wages. They have to deal with all sorts of issues. (Chonce)

It is believe that child benefits are quite important for parents to cope with the cost of rearing their children. The Cambridge Dictionary (2015) has defined child benefit as ‘money received regularly by families from the government to help pay for costs of taking care of children’. In the United Kingdom, the government has changed the child benefits policy in 2013. Child benefits are no longer available to every household. Individuals who earn above £50,000 a year will lose some of their benefit, and entirely withdrawn for individuals earning beyond £60,000 each year. This rule leads to a considerable effect to the people in the UK. It has diminished the entitlement of approximately 1.2 million households (BBC, 2015). In this essay, I will describe this policy as well as the labour supply model, then by using the standard labour supply model, investigate how this shift in child benefits will influence labour supply decisions for a single mother with two children who is capable of finding work at £30 per hour.

An article by Hamilton (2012) highlights that because of the stigma associated with being poor and the fear of judgement, some people will spend money on things that are not considered to be essential. For example, several people came forward and described that they did not want their children to be teased or bullied for being different, so they made sure to buy them fashionable clothing items so they would not feel ostracized by their peers. This makes budgeting difficult, and as a result makes it harder to get out of poverty, but a popular reaction to this problem is to blame the parents for wasting money instead of budgeting ‘correctly’. However, families that did attempt to budget and save money were not automatically on their way out of poverty, and depending on their situation, some households still had to choose between paying rent or buying food. This further highlights that households are incredibly varied, so it is unfair to assume that what works for one household works for all of them. Furthermore, research has also found that people are often ashamed of claiming benefits or asking for support, to the point where they try to cope without it for as long as possible (Shildrick et al, 2010). For example, in a documentary called ‘Breadline Kids’ (True Vision, 2014), one woman and her granddaughter had gotten to the point where they could not afford food, but going to the foodbank felt like they were ‘giving up’. This does not fit with May’s claim that “too many people” preferred being dependent on benefits, and shows that the social connotations associated with poverty and needing benefits also affect how different households cope with their

The term ‘social problem’ refers to certain problems that are socially recognised by society and are felt to threaten certain values cherished by the public. This essay will investigate the different types of poverty that occur in the U.K and will explore the sociological arguments as to how poverty links with social problems such as social exclusion, gender discrimination in the work place, lone-parenting and disability and look at how these problems are perceived in today’s society.

In the main body of the text, the author makes clear that in recent years, there has been a lot of social stigma emerging around young, single mothers who are on benefits.

This is evident in contemporary social circumstances such as female unemployment rates, the current economic gender gap and the overwhelming victimisation rates of women in terms of sexual assault and intimate partner violence. Studies of the national unemployment and underemployment rate conducted over the past decade have found that women constitute 52% of unemployed Australians. In addition to the unemployment rate for women being consistently and significantly higher than it is for men, the underemployment rate for females stands at 8.2% compared to 4.9% for males. Aside from conforming to traditional gender roles, one explanation to this is by understanding the social disadvantages experienced by one parent families, particularly single mothers. One parent families constitute 15% of all families within Australia. As single mothers attribute to 81% of one parent families, and only 55% of single mothers are employed, finding an economically beneficial work and family balance can prove to be quite physically and mentally

Stamping on the working poor by taking tax credits, by making it harder for single parents to change their circumstances, all the while protecting elderly voters, is exactly what this government said it would do. It cannot, though, deny that these new child poverty figures are shameful. Instead, it tacitly insists that inequality is the price we pay for

Historically, one of the most economically vulnerable groups in New Zealand and other Western countries are sole-parent families (Family Commissions, 2010). When examining historical influences in New Zealand on sole-parenting, one must consider the influential changes the Second World War era had on families and family structures. Sole-parenthood was not particularly common during the this period, as most women married young and went on to have children while the men worked to provide for their families or went off to war. (Families Commission, 2008, June). Unmarried women who fell pregnant were scrutinized as being unfit mothers and shamed for getting pregnant outside of marriage. These women were heavily encouraged to give their babies up for adoption to allow their children to live a “normal” life and were seen as selfish if they chose to keep the baby (Else, A., 2012).

Lone parents within the UK are growing up through high rates of poverty as well as a lack of social assistance. This essay will investigate social policy responses towards lone parents and how they can improve their lives and wellbeing. Throughout the UK there is no simple connection between lone parents and low rates of economic activity as even before the move into lone parenthood rates of paid work were quite low and do not exactly rise with those leaving lone parenthood. In an article titled ‘Activation as a Common Framework for Social Policies towards lone parents,’ it is stated that lone parents are considered as a ‘social risk’. This article focuses on review and comparing recent social policy reforms based on lone parent families.

Single parent families, especially those headed by a female, differ greatly from married couple families in their characteristics. Single parent families are more likely to be poor, receive welfare, and contain young children. In 1990 female-headed households had a poverty rate of 33.4 percent while poverty rates for married couple and male-headed households were 5.7 and 12.0, respectively. (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1991a). As reflected by their higher poverty rate, the earnings power of women heading households is far less than that of married couples or male only

Single-parent families are more common than you think. A recent study by Sara McLanahan with The Harvard Press shows that about 25% of families are headed by single-parents in today’s society. A family that is run by one adult, struggles much more than a family with two adults. This was a problem in the 1930s, as demonstrated in the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Single-parent homes are still a relevant problem in the 21st century. Atticus Finch became a single-parent due to the death of his spouse, in Maycomb, Alabama during the 1930s. Finch’s injustice in the book, To Kill A Mockingbird, is that he had to struggle as a single-parent which causes things that would not normally be an issue as a two parent household. Raising his children to be honest, respectable and proper was important to him, so Atticus made an effort to spend quality time with his children. This was contrary to Mr. Ewell who did not raise his children in the same manor as Atticus. Even though this injustice has been prevalent throughout the years, we can take steps to reduce the challenges that may arise within a single-parent home. The best solution to decreasing the struggle with single-parent families is to offer supporting services that will take some stress off of a single-parent and help guide their children.