Explaining the ‘Problem’ of Lone Motherhood: an Introduction

Abstract

There are, proportionately, more lone mother families in Britain than in most other western countries, but British lone mothers are far less likely to be in paid work than their counterparts in countries such as Germany, Sweden and the USA. Why is this? Is it because British lone mothers do not want to work and prefer to live off the state? Or is it because their notions of ‘good’ motherhood mean they would rather stay at home? Do they want to go out to work but cannot because there is no available, or affordable, day care for their children? Or are there no jobs available or suitable for them? Or is it because the British benefits system makes it financially irrational for lone mothers to take up paid work? This book sets out to answer these questions. It focuses on how lone mothers negotiate the relationship between motherhood and paid work in the different social contexts of neighbourhoods, local labour markets and welfare states — contexts which present different sets of opportunities and constraints.KeywordsSocial HousingLocal Labour MarketLone ParentLone MotherPrivate RentingThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.