The New Uprooted: Single Mothers in Urban Life

Abstract

Mulroy, Elizabeth A. (1995). The New Uprooted: Single Mothers in Urban Life. Westport, CT: Auburn House. 206 pp. Hardcover ISBN 086569-038-3, price $55.00. Softcover ISBN 0-086569-039-1, price $16.95. Single-parent families represent one out of every four families in the United States. Eighty-six percent of these families are headed by women and 14% by men. Single-parent families are not a homogeneous but rather a heterogeneous group derived from divorce, births out of wedlock, spousal absence, death of a parent, and adoption. The purpose of this book was to examine how single mothers from a diverse set of social and economic circumstances experience dual roles of sole family breadwinner and sole resident parent in the changing urban environment of the 1990's (p. 4). It is a report of the day-to-day experiences of single parents themselves and the details of their living conditions. The conceptual framework in which the findings are analyzed is Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Mulroy claims that assumptions in this model do not work when applied to single-parent families inasmuch as needs are not neatly piled in a hierarchical order achieved in a linear fashion. She purports that shelter, food, and physical safety are interrelated and must be considered simultaneously. Thus, the first level of needs consists of safe, affordable, habitable, and permanent housing that forms a ring for family stability. This book reports findings from a research study based on an interdisciplinary, multimethod approach. Both microlevel (individual single mothers) and macrolevel analysis (neighborhoods, events, policies) were addressed. The microlevel data were collected in a qualitative study of 73 single mothers. The purposive sample was selected and a structured interview was conducted in a variety of settings in the northeastern United States. The macrolevel data were derived from current U.S. Census Bureau and other government agency statistics and scholarly research papers. Following the preface, the book is divided into three parts with nine chapters. Part I presents background information on one-parent families that establishes a foundation on which the remainder of the book rests. Transformational social and economic shifts are analyzed in Chapter 2. Demographic trends show diversity and shifts in family form during the past 30 years; the increase in the number of one-parent families is only one of many trends. The impacts of economic restructuring are discussed relative to changing levels and sources of family economic support for women as well as men. Chapter 3 provides a theoretical background on trends in the physical environment, especially urban housing and neighborhood environments that are important to one-parent families. It attempts to answer the following questions: What has happened to America's cities and how does the housing market work? …