tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/single-parenthood-2051/articlesSingle parenthood – The Conversation2024-03-22T11:54:36Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2262672024-03-22T11:54:36Z2024-03-22T11:54:36ZScotland apologised in 2023 for historic forced adoptions – but this happened throughout the UK<p>“For the decades of pain that you have suffered, I offer today a sincere and heartfelt and unreserved apology. We were wrong.” One year ago, on March 22 2023, the then first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, stood up at Holyrood and said sorry for the Scottish government’s role in historic <a href="https://www.gov.scot/publications/scoping-study-historic-forced-adoption-final-report/pages/4/">forced adoptions</a>. </p>
<p>From the 1950s to the 1970s, thousands of young, unmarried women – <a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19892887.scotlands-forced-adoption-scandal-time-apology-says-kirsty-strickland/">as many as 60,000</a> – were coerced into giving up their babies. “It is a level of injustice,” Sturgeon <a href="https://www.gov.scot/publications/apology-historical-adoption-practices-first-ministers-speech-22-march-2023/">said</a>, “which is hard now for us to comprehend.” </p>
<p>Rooted in conservative attitudes towards sex outside marriage, forced adoptions saw pregnant single women sent, mostly by local health authorities, to mother and baby homes run by religious organisations. After birth, the babies were adopted and the mothers returned home, prevented from speaking of what had happened. </p>
<p>This scandal did not just affect Scotland. It was common practice across the UK. In 2021 I submitted <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/40260/pdf/">written</a> and <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/3219/pdf/">oral</a> evidence to an inquiry into historic forced adoption covering England and Wales. My <a href="https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/205511/3/Forced_adoption_-_briefing_-_ML_27.09.23.pdf">recent research</a> highlights that the UK government’s <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/34106/documents/187682/default/">stated position</a> denying state involvement is wholly untenable, when faced with the historical record, much of which comes from its very own archives.</p>
<h2>Reckoning with the past</h2>
<p>Scotland’s reckoning with the past came from over a decade of campaigning by birth mothers and adult adoptees. They wanted the government to follow the Australian example, where on March 21 2012 the then prime minister, Julia Gillard, <a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-19165">issued a formal public apology</a>, following a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/senate/community_affairs/completed_inquiries/2010-13/commcontribformerforcedadoption/report/%7E/media/wopapub/senate/committee/clac_ctte/completed_inquiries/2010-13/comm_contrib_former_forced_adoption/report/report.ashx">major inquiry</a>. Scotland has not held an inquiry. But the government has, to date, been receptive to the voices of campaigners.</p>
<p>This same <a href="https://theconversation.com/irelands-shame-reforming-an-adoption-system-marked-by-secrecy-and-trauma-160897">economy of adoption</a> underpinned the mother and baby homes and <a href="https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/mother-and-baby-homes-and-magdalene-laundries-research-report">Magdalene Laundries</a> system in Northern Ireland, albeit from a Catholic perspective. Until <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8638/">direct rule</a> by the UK government was implemented in 1972, Northern Ireland had its own national government with administration and legislative responsibilities.</p>
<p>In 2021, the UK parliamentary joint committee on human rights announced an inquiry into historic forced adoptions in England and Wales. This, too, followed pressure from campaigners and the media, as well as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/03/catholic-church-apologises-for-role-in-forced-adoptions-over-30-year-period">apology the Catholic Church issued</a> in 2016 for the role it played. </p>
<p>The subsequent report estimated that from 1949 to 1976, in England and Wales around 185,000 unmarried mothers – as many as <a href="https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/205511/3/Forced_adoption_-_briefing_-_ML_27.09.23.pdf">215,000</a> – and their babies were affected. </p>
<p>The inquiry found the UK government was ultimately responsible for what it termed “the actions and omissions” which inflicted harm on so many young, vulnerable women and children. Actions included judgemental and cruel practices from a range of state-employed health, welfare and social service professionals. Omissions regarding a failure to protect young, unmarried women and ensure their human rights were upheld.</p>
<h2>State actions and omissions</h2>
<p>My research into UK governmental archives shows that forced adoption could not have happened in scope or scale without the state. The UK government transformed adoption from a cottage industry to one of mass production.</p>
<p>Before the second world war, mother and baby homes kept families together. The mothers trained for domestic service, which, crucially, enabled them to obtain work and have somewhere to live. Adoptions were less common, with around <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230582842">50,000 faciliated in 13 years</a>, from 1926 to 1939. </p>
<p>This changed in 1943, when the UK government <a href="https://movementforanadoptionapology.org/letter-from-dr-michael-lambert/">introduced subsidies</a> for mother and baby homes and registered adoption societies. New homes were opened, old ones expanded and more workers were appointed to handle the growing numbers of adoptions.</p>
<p>It briefly considered nationalising these institutions when the foundations of the welfare state were being laid in the late 1940s. However, the existing system was seen to be working well. Fundamentally, the issue was deemed a moral and spiritual one, more suited to religious oversight. Ultimately no changes were made; money flowed in and babies flowed out.</p>
<p>New adoption legislation, in 1949 and 1958, made the legal process easier and quicker. Most babies were between ten days and six weeks old when they were given new identities with adoptive families. The annual figure grew year-on-year, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/27/forced-adoption-mother-and-child-reunited">peaking in England at 16,164 in 1968</a>.</p>
<p>Secrecy – ensured by families – was integral to making adoption work. Adoptive families aimed to pass the child off biologically as their own and keep up appearances of respectability. This meant babies growing up in the stable, typically affluent family environment idealised by health, welfare and social professionals. For mothers, it meant they could return home and begin their lives again, untainted by the stigma of illegitimacy. </p>
<p>The UK government was well aware that mothers were being coerced – that their decision to give up their babies was not just a difficult moral dilemma. As early as 1951, the representative bodies for registered adoption societies highlighted that unmarried mothers had little agency to refuse.</p>
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<p>The nascent welfare state was designed around male financial responsibility for their families. Its failure to adequately provide financial support and housing to unmarried mothers was intentional. </p>
<p>Officials deemed unmarried mothers to be <a href="https://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3561/1/Rowe_gender_and_the_politics.pdf">undeserving</a> compared with married women in conventional families. Their entitlements to financial support were <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1747-4469.2004.tb00339.x">refused or diluted</a>. Those concerning housing were <a href="https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526156761/9781526156761.00007.xml">subject to the discretion</a> of judgemental local and central government officials.</p>
<p>This would only change in 1974 with British judge Morris Finer’s landmark report on one-parent families. Women would have to wait another four years for their legal right to housing to be guaranteed, in 1977.</p>
<p>Demonstrating that historic forced adoptions were the product of central government policy, the 2021 inquiry recommended that the UK government <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/23076/documents/169043/default/">apologise</a>. </p>
<p>The latter’s <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/34106/documents/187682/default/">written response</a> in Februrary 2023 said: “The government agrees that the treatment of women and their children in adoption practices during this period was wrong and should not have happened. Whilst we do not think it is appropriate for a formal government apology to be given, since the state did not actively support these practices, we do wish to say we are sorry of behalf of society to all those affected.”</p>
<p>This belies the fact that the state was far from powerless. It enabled, financed and sustained forced adoption as its preferred policy. </p>
<p>On April 25 2023, as part of an <a href="https://www.gov.wales/people-affected-historic-adoption-practices-welcomed-senedd-welsh-government-apology">official apology</a> from the Welsh government, deputy minister for social services Julie Morgan offered her “deepest sympathy and regret to all affected” for enduring “such appalling historical practices”.</p>
<p>Importantly, Morgan’s statement recognised that forced adoption predated devolution. England had legal, political and administrative responsibility at that time. In not apologising, the UK government is denying justice to thousands of birth mothers – whose numbers tragically dwindle daily – and adult adoptees who may never know the women who gave birth to them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Lambert has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, Wellcome Trust, and National Institute for Health Research.</span></em></p>In the 1940s, Britain’s nascent welfare state was designed around male financial responsibility for their families – unmarried mothers were intentionally disregarded.Michael Lambert, Research Fellow and Director of Widening Participation, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1265622019-12-04T12:22:29Z2019-12-04T12:22:29ZOne in four children grow up in a single-parent family – so why is there still a stigma?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304437/original/file-20191129-95211-myaoq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C7271%2C4781&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Just the two of us.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/african-american-mother-daughter-having-fun-1082572481?src=75266495-1fb9-4ab0-8c4c-14f365fa1f99-1-79">shutterstock /LightField</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Given that one in four children now grow up in <a href="https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/bulk/r2_2">one-parent homes</a> and that 42% of marriages <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/bulletins/divorcesinenglandandwales/2017">end in divorce</a> you might expect prejudice against single parents to be a thing of the past. Yet <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/03/27/single-parents-stigma-society-_n_5042179.html">a 2014 poll</a> found that 75% of single parents had experienced stigma. </p>
<p>Indeed, Boris Johnson has <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/boris-johnson-single-mothers-children">recently been confronted</a> about a column he wrote for <a href="http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/19th-august-1995/6/politics">The Spectator in 1995</a> which <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-single-mother-children-spectator-general-election-a9225736.html">described the children of single mothers</a> as “ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate”. When pressed on the comments <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-single-mother-children-spectator-general-election-a9225736.html">by callers on LBC radio</a>, Johnson said this was written before he was in politics.</p>
<p>It’s maybe not surprising, then, that mothers who took part in <a href="http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/34358/1/FINAL%2520THESIS%2520-%2520Carroll.pdf">my research interviews</a> described feeling isolated, stigmatised and frustrated with negative stereotypes.</p>
<p>In fact, most participants in the study said they wouldn’t tell someone they met for the first time they were a single parent, viewing it as a “label” which they automatically associate with “being judged”. Some told me about critical remarks made by relatives, colleagues or acquaintances. Others spoke of being “dropped” from their social circle after their divorce or not being invited when couple families got together for meals and outings.</p>
<h2>Judged and shamed</h2>
<p>Stereotyping was by far the most common symptom of stigma raised by mothers from a range of backgrounds and circumstances. Unsurprisingly, The Daily Mail and Jeremy Kyle Show were named as prime culprits for portraying “teenage mums deliberately getting pregnant so they can scrounge off the state” and “single mums who don’t know who the fathers of their children are”.</p>
<p>Interviewees believed these images are perpetuated in the media because it attracts larger audiences than reflecting realities of their own lives such as balancing work and childcare. They were angry that programmes portraying single parents as irresponsible then prompt “nasty” social media posts.</p>
<p>Parents also discussed the impact of stereotypes on their self-esteem. As one explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I fell into that whole stigma of broken families … I was judging myself because I’d listened to opinions out there in society … the media and policies at government level.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Why the stigma?</h2>
<p>Where psychologists <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/palcomms201786">have focused on</a> cognitive processes entailed in stereotyping, sociologist Erving Goffman examined stigma as a manifestation of broader social relations. His <a href="https://www.scribd.com/read/224364318/Stigma-Notes-on-the-Management-of-Spoiled-Identity">seminal 1963 essay</a> described how so-called “normals” are respected for meeting cultural expectations while those who “fall short” of the criteria become “discredited”. </p>
<p>Goffman argues that having a “spoilt identity” hinges on what is deemed socially desirable at a particular time and place, rather than a person’s attributes. This explains why non-marital birth and divorce have lost their stigma in Western society. But this doesn’t tell us why single parents, <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/bulletins/familiesandhouseholds/2018">who now number 1.8 million in the UK</a>, still face stigma.</p>
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<p>Sociological researchers <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.363">Bruce Link and Jo Phelan</a> have built on Goffman’s insights to show how labelling and cultural beliefs cause “us and them” distinctions, leading in turn to status loss, discrimination and disadvantage. Where Goffman concentrated on personal interactions, Link and Phelan view wider economic, social and political power structures as essential to the reproduction of stigma. And analysis of these forces may indeed shed light on why single-parent stigma continues.</p>
<p>Looking first at finance, mothers without male partners through history have been <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199578504.001.0001/acprof-9780199578504">both poor and branded as immoral</a>. Medieval villagers would throw stones and use crude instruments to “<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sociology-Personal-Life-Vanessa-May/dp/0230278973">make rough music</a>” outside the doors of unmarried pregnant women – who they saw as an economic burden on the parish. </p>
<p>Church records from the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=qmO7AAAAIAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Adair,+R.+(1996)+Courtship,+Illegitimacy+and+marriage+in+early+modern+England.+Manchester:+Manchester+University+Press.&ots=XODBXR0Wi6&sig=iZjMJtm8hOZei2ylrMs4GBg9Jjg">16th-century</a> detail disputes over financial responsibility for “bastards”. Tabloid attacks on single parents could then be seen as a modern equivalent of medieval “rough music” – coupling concern over resources with moral condemnation. </p>
<p>Researchers have demonstrated how stereotyping of single mothers is also inextricably linked with <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315847658">gender inequalities</a> and <a href="http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/75251/3/Morris%2520Munt%2520Final%2520April18%2520clean%2520copy.pdf">class caricatures</a>. Policies of successive governments have reinforced single-parent stigma. Research shows how “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-social-policy/article/welfaretowork-agency-and-personal-responsibility/BDC49FC331788A66208DC2C95DF94915">workfare” policies</a>, <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/parenting-the-crisis">austerity and “broken families” rhetoric</a> has influenced public attitudes and <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S1530-353520180000013004/full/html">shamed lone parents who are unable to access suitable jobs</a>. And welfare reform means young single parents, who meet with most disapproval, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/austerity-uk-single-parents-ageism-universal-credit-a9172056.html">receive £780 a year less</a> than those over 25.</p>
<h2>Ending unhelpful cliches</h2>
<p>For stigma to stop, the media need to look at the facts, rather than recycling unhelpful cliches. Indeed, <a href="https://www.gingerbread.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/One-in-four-a-profile-of-single-parents-in-the-UK.compressed.pdf">70% of single parents work, some 10% are fathers. And the average age of a single parent is 39</a>. </p>
<p>Research also shows that having a single mother has “<a href="https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/the-rise-in-singlemother-families-and-childrens-cognitive-development(fdc16a33-c940-4998-bec3-fe43e47bea9c).html">insignificant” effect on children’s development</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/teenage-pregnancy-doesnt-have-to-mean-catastrophe-research-shows-it-can-be-an-opportunity-115527">being a young parent can be positive</a>. Ironically, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/10/tracy-beaker-returns-jacqueline-wilson">children’s fiction</a> and <a href="https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/single-parents-comedy-central-episode-1-review-cast-497079">comedy series</a> often seem to depict lone parenting in a more rounded way than journalism can manage.</p>
<p>Public policy must also do more to understand the practicalities of lone parenting – given the fact that single parents are more likely to be <a href="https://www.gingerbread.org.uk/policy-campaigns/publications-index/single-parents-benefits-sanctions/">wrongly sanctioned</a> than other benefit claimants. One of the mothers in my study with eight year-old twins and no support described being negatively “judged” for not working, yet unable to take a cleaning job starting at 5am, which she was advised to apply for. Recognising such predicaments would be a major step towards breaking the stigma cycle.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126562/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicola Carroll does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Single mothers I interviewed described feeling isolated, stigmatised and frustrated with negative stereotypes.Nicola Carroll, Researcher and associate lecturer in Sociology, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1072962018-11-27T13:15:49Z2018-11-27T13:15:49ZWeighing up South Africa’s family policy: what does and doesn’t work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247021/original/file-20181123-149332-12mxef0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Single parent and extended families are the dominant family forms in South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa is one of a small number of developing countries that’s formulated a national policy focused on families. A family policy, broadly defined, refers to everything a government does to promote the well-being of families, such as social grants, family services, or social housing. </p>
<p>The country’s policy – known as the <a href="https://www.westerncape.gov.za/assets/departments/social-development/white_paper_on_families_in_south_africa_2013.pdf">White Paper on Families</a> – has three priorities. They are promoting healthy family life, strengthening the family and preserving the family. The intention of the policy is to promote and support families, many of whom are currently facing huge financial and social pressures. </p>
<p>Implementation of the policy is supposed to result in well-functioning and resilient families able to nurture, support and care for their family members.</p>
<p>But a policy on paper is only as good as its implementation and monitoring. <a href="https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/humanities/csda/Documents/Family%20Policy%20Report%20Nov%202018%20Web.pdf">Our review</a> of the implementation of the policy suggests the country faces challenges getting it off the ground. The biggest relate to capacity, political will and funding.</p>
<p>We identified some critical gaps that need attention. These include clarification of intended outcomes, the execution of robust monitoring, evaluation and reporting systems, the allocation of realistic budgets, employing staff with the right knowledge and skills, and renewed political will to promote the plan.</p>
<h2>What works and doesn’t</h2>
<p>The White Paper goes some way to acknowledging the historical context and current key factors that negatively affect families in the country. These include the <a href="http://africanhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-93">apartheid migrant labour system</a>, which separated families; <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-09-03-more-adults-not-working-than-working-in-south-africa/">massive unemployment</a>, persistently high poverty rates and income inequality, the <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/uploads/pageContent/9234/SABSSMV_Impact_Assessment_Summary_ZA_ADS_cleared_PDFA4.pdf">HIV epidemic</a>, and high levels of interpersonal violence.</p>
<p>It seeks to enable broad family support through the state welfare system as well as non-governmental services. The idea is to ensure that families don’t “get lost” in the maze of social policies, and their well-being is explicitly promoted.</p>
<p>The policy lists a variety of family structures. Nevertheless it remains too skewed towards heterosexual, nuclear, and marriage-based family norms. Another <a href="http://psppdknowledgerepository.org/component/jdownloads/send/9-grantee-research/377-the-family-observatory-for-preventive-and-developmental-social-work-a-qualitative-investigation-into-the-challenges-regarding-the-implementation-of-the-white-paper-on-families-in-south-africa-among-social-work-managers-in-the-public-sector">problem is that</a> it’s vague and contradictory in its formulations. This will make policy implementation more difficult.</p>
<p>More attention needs to be paid to aligning the White Paper with realities of the everyday lives of families. One such reality is that single parent and extended families are the dominant family forms. </p>
<p>Policy improvements also need to focus on the integration of services. And the importance of training, supervision and coaching of both officials and front-line service workers can’t be over emphasised.</p>
<h2>Gaps that need filling</h2>
<p>Our review combined literature and document review, consultation and roundtable reportage. We didn’t find evidence that lessons learnt from training that’s been done at national level has cascaded down to local government levels and non-governmental service agencies. There is no evidence that this is happening to a sufficient degree. Rectifying this is critical.</p>
<p>Clarity of information - on matters like staff numbers and budgets – is also missing. Budgets appear to be inadequate and are not aligned with a strategic plan or an implementation plan. And there doesn’t appear to be a separate budget to implement the policy.</p>
<p>Another area of weakness is that there has been no consistent performance monitoring of staff or evaluation of the programmes against established or standardised metrics. </p>
<p>Family forums – a key tool of the policy – have been established at National and Provincial levels. But there’s no standardised reporting. Where it does exist it’s unaudited, making it difficult to assess what the outputs and outcomes are. Interest in these forums has declined and there is little to no coordination between provincial and local level forums.</p>
<p>We found that South Africa’s approach to family policy fills an important knowledge gap as there is a dearth of research on family policies in the global South compared to the North. But, the broad net that it casts – incorporating other policies of various departments – fails to make clear the synergies and strategies that the country should be working towards. And coordination and integration are left unspecified.</p>
<p>The White Paper endorses a combination of private and public support for families. But it falls short of clearly identifying priorities in promoting family and social cohesion. It also creates a capacity issue for itself – especially in monitoring and evaluation of implementation.</p>
<h2>Empowering families</h2>
<p>Looking forward, an audit of the family-focused interventions and support provided across different parts of the government would, we believe, be a productive first step to assess what family assistance South Africa is currently provided, what resources are allocated for this purpose and how this might be used for maximum effect. Loss of fiscal resources through <a href="https://www.sastatecapture.org.za/">corruption and mismanagement</a> has eroded much needed resources for family well-being. </p>
<p>It would also help develop the right metrics to measure success. </p>
<p>In addition, critical questions need to be asked about what the best ways are to empower families to tackle the country’s inequality gaps. </p>
<p><em>Thomas Englert, a research assistant at the Centre for Social Development in Africa, collaborated on the research and this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Centre for Social Development in Africa, University of Johannesburg, is funded by the university as well as external donors. This review was funded by the Department of Science and Technology and NRF Research Foundation Centre of Excellence in Human Development at the University of the Witwatersrand. It was done with the cooperation of the National Department of Social Development. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leila Patel receives funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF) for her Chair in Welfare and Social Development and the University of Johannesburg. This review was funded by the Department of Science and Technology and NRF Research Foundation Centre of Excellence in Human Development at the University of the Witwatersrand. It was done with the cooperation of the National Department of Social Development. </span></em></p>More attention needs to be paid to aligning South Africa’s family policy with the realities of everyday life.Tessa Hochfeld, Associate professor, University of JohannesburgLeila Patel, Professor of Social Development Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/739022017-03-20T19:17:29Z2017-03-20T19:17:29ZHigher child support doesn’t lead to welfare dependency for single mums<p>Child support <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/tpp/jpsj/2017/00000025/00000001/art00006">reduces poverty</a> among single mothers in Australia and does not discourage employment or reduce the number of hours worked. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1475-4932.12314/full">My analysis</a> of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey studies how the amount of child support a single mother receives, affects how much she works. </p>
<p><a href="https://aifs.gov.au/publications/impact-child-support-payments-labour-supply-de">Previous research</a> has found that single mums with bigger child support payments worked less than those with lower payments. This is partly due to the <a href="https://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/working-out-child-support-payments-using-basic-formula">formula</a> that determines how much child support should be paid.</p>
<p>The formula means that when the non-resident father’s income is higher, child support increases. But if a single mother stops working and the father’s income stays the same, her child support payments increase. </p>
<p>The formula directly causes child support to increase if hours of work decrease. My analysis adjusts for this and finds that receiving a higher child support payment leads to an increase in the employment rate of single mothers and an increase in the number of hours worked each week.</p>
<p>One explanation for these results is the way that child support and welfare payments interact. When the level of child support increases, there is a change in the trade-offs single mums face when deciding how much to work. </p>
<p>Family Tax Benefit A is reduced by 50 cents <a href="https://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/income-test-family-tax-benefit-part">for every dollar of child support received above a certain amount</a>. So mothers with a high child support payment, get less Family Tax Benefit A. This means that there is less Family Tax Benefit A to lose as a mother’s income increases and so the incentive to work is stronger. </p>
<h2>Welfare dependency</h2>
<p>A popular concern is that higher levels of child support could enable long-term welfare dependence. Single mothers may rely on child support and parenting payments and then transition to other income support payments as their children grow up.</p>
<p>However I found that more child support can increase employment for single mothers, this means that higher levels of child support could in fact reduce long-term welfare dependency for this high-risk group.</p>
<p>Single mother households make up <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/tpp/jpsj/2017/00000025/00000001/art00006">over 87% of child support recipients</a> in Australia, and are significantly more likely to be in poverty than other households. <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/5F4BB49C975C64C9CA256D6B00827ADB?opendocument">43% of single parent households</a> rely on welfare payments as their main source of income. </p>
<p>The recent government <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/09_2016/baseline_valuation_results_report_accessible_version_12_july_2016_2pwc._2.pdf">Baseline Evaluation Report</a> into the lifetime costs of Australia’s welfare system identified young parents as a group who will access welfare payments intensively across their lifetime.</p>
<h2>A case for higher child support?</h2>
<p>Single mothers work more when their child support increases and other welfare payments such as the Parenting Payment fall by less than the increase in earnings. This means that when child support increases, single mothers have higher household income.</p>
<p>Some of this increased income will be taken up by childcare costs. Despite this, increased employment is likely to increase the wellbeing of single mothers and their children. </p>
<p>When these women work more it <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2005.00261.x/full">increases their superannuation and their future earnings</a>, reducing the chances of old-age poverty. Children growing up in households that are not reliant on income support are <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp4618.pdf">less likely to become income support recipients in early adulthood</a>.</p>
<p>In terms of eligibility, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/E6A9286119FA0A85CA25699000255C89?opendocument">21% of children in Australia have a parent living elsewhere</a> and so qualify to receive child support. Changes to the level of child support payments can therefore affect the long-term employment outcomes of many parents.</p>
<p>However, the level of child support payments is an understandably contentious issue. Parents paying child support <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/Publications/Documents/Post-SeparationParentingPropertyAndRelationshipDynamicsAfterFiveYears/post-separation-parenting-property-and-relationship-dynamics-after-five-years-chapter-7b.pdf">describe the amount they pay as unfair</a>, and parents receiving child support find the amount received insufficient. </p>
<p>The finding that higher levels of child support do not discourage single mothers’ employment gives confidence that an increase in child support would not increase their welfare dependence. However there’s room to research the effect on single fathers, so that the full implications of such an increase can be fully understood.</p>
<p><em>Dr Fisher will be online for an Author Q&A between 12.30pm, and 1.30pm on Tuesday, 21 March, 2017. Post any questions you have in the comments below.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hayley Fisher receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Higher child support payments actually lead to an increase in the employment rate of single mums, research finds.Hayley Fisher, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/681582016-11-07T02:06:43Z2016-11-07T02:06:43ZFor single parents, it pays to work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144754/original/image-20161107-27919-1gkzz8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Analysis shows single parents who are welfare recipients have a financial incentive to seek work.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite some <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/treasury/parental-welfare-pays-more-than-work/news-story/5f4d825e0957e954fea4e13e7ff2fe26">analysis from other media</a> suggesting single parents might find being on welfare more attractive than working, more than half of sole parents in Australia are in work and are better off as a result.</p>
<p>Australia’s tax and social security systems are designed to collect revenue on a fair basis, to provide a means tested safety net to protect people from poverty, to support the cost of raising children and to encourage work. </p>
<p>The Treasurer <a href="http://sjm.ministers.treasury.gov.au/transcript/039-2015/">recently said</a> that the:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“…ultimate test for any welfare system and any tax system [is that they are] well synchronised when you are better off if you are of working age in this country and you are able to work that you are better off in work than you are on welfare”. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Our analysis shows Australia’s tax and social security systems do meet the goal of ensuring that welfare recipients have a financial incentive to seek work and, if they are working part time, to work more hours. </p>
<h2>Does sole parent welfare pay more than work?</h2>
<p>We looked in detail at the case of a sole parent with four kids aged 13, 10, 7 and 4, proposed by <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/treasury/parental-welfare-pays-more-than-work/news-story/5f4d825e0957e954fea4e13e7ff2fe26">Sarah Martin</a>, “Parental Welfare Pays More than Work” in The Australian. Martin said that “thousands of parents claiming government benefits are financially better off not getting a job” and that 10% of parenting payment recipients, about 43,200 people, were better off than a median wage earner. However as the Australian Council of Social Service <a href="http://www.acoss.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/sole-parent-work-incentives-tables16_1.pdf">observed</a>, four kids and a single parent is a pretty unusual family structure these days. </p>
<p>Let’s call our sole parent Jane, as more than 85% of sole parents are mothers. If Jane is not in the paid workforce, she would take home A$52,469 in government benefits for the year to raise her family.</p>
<p>Jane does not face a simple choice between welfare or work. Our system is designed to encourage work, so Jane will continue to receive family benefits in work. When Jane’s youngest child turns six, Jane is required by law to seek work (or study) of at least 15 hours a week, to get the benefits.</p>
<p>Financial incentives to work are produced by the net take-home income of a family, after tax paid and benefits received. This is reflected in the Effective Marginal Tax Rate (EMTR), which takes into account tax paid and benefits lost as income from work rises; and the participation tax rate, which is the average EMTR over a range of income given the decision to take up work. The EMTR for Jane for earnings up to A$80,000 is shown in the chart below.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144753/original/image-20161106-27934-2rnsb9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144753/original/image-20161106-27934-2rnsb9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144753/original/image-20161106-27934-2rnsb9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144753/original/image-20161106-27934-2rnsb9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144753/original/image-20161106-27934-2rnsb9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144753/original/image-20161106-27934-2rnsb9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144753/original/image-20161106-27934-2rnsb9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">D Plunkett model (September 2016)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As shown in the chart, Jane can earn A$6,000 with no tax or loss of benefits. The EMTR on her next A$10,000 is 40% and then to the median wage of A$61,300, it is 60%-65%.</p>
<p>Up to the median wage, Jane’s participation tax rate is about 55% so she is financially better off by at least $35 for each $100 earned after benefits phase out and tax is paid. It’s clear that working pays for Jane, even though the EMTR looks quite high. </p>
<p>The “spikes” where the EMTR reaches 100%, are when a benefit ends or Medicare Levy phases in, apply over a small range and do not affect the overall picture. The coloured areas show the income tax on Jane (red), Medicare Levy (green) and withdrawal of parenting payment and Family Tax Benefit A (yellow) as her wage income rises. </p>
<p>More detail about EMTRs and how they are produced by the interaction of tax and transfer systems is in <a href="https://taxpolicy.crawford.anu.edu.au/files/uploads/taxstudies_crawford_anu_edu_au/2016-08/ingles_plunkett_policy_brief_1_2016_last.pdf">Tax and Transfer Policy Institute Policy Brief 1/2016</a> by Ingles and Plunkett. It also includes discussion of possible policy responses to improve work incentives.</p>
<h2>Net take home pay for each extra day of work</h2>
<p>We can show Jane’s net position after tax and benefits, for each extra day of work from one day up to five days (full-time). To do this, we need to assume a wage rate for Jane.</p>
<p>Assuming the median wage of A$61,300 (full time), Jane’s hourly wage rate is approximately A$37. We do not use the “part time inclusive” median wage of A$46,200 adopted by Sarah Martin in The Australian, because that confuses the hourly wage rate and the hours worked. </p>
<p>We also assume a rental housing cost for Jane of A$20,800 or A$400 per week, at the low end for Sydney. Even at this modest rent, Jane would be in <a href="https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/final-reports/192">“housing stress”</a>, paying more than 30% of her income in rent. </p>
<p>Jane’s net position if she goes to work for one day up to five days is shown below (ignoring childcare and other costs). It shows a total gain from working of A$27,150 a year if Jane works full-time. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144755/original/image-20161107-27919-1h6kjh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144755/original/image-20161107-27919-1h6kjh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144755/original/image-20161107-27919-1h6kjh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144755/original/image-20161107-27919-1h6kjh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144755/original/image-20161107-27919-1h6kjh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144755/original/image-20161107-27919-1h6kjh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144755/original/image-20161107-27919-1h6kjh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>Work pays for Jane even if she only works one day a week. However, Jane does less well from days three to five of work, due to the relatively high EMTRs which apply over the income range of A$30,000 to $60,000. </p>
<h2>The poverty line for a sole parent with four kids</h2>
<p>The implication of the debate about being “better off” on benefits, is that welfare is too generous. But this needs to be put into perspective. </p>
<p>For Jane’s family with four children aged 4 to 13, the standard Australian <a href="https://melbourneinstitute.com/miaesr/publications/indicators/poverty-lines-australia.html">Henderson poverty line</a> in June 2016 was A$52,191 (not working) and A$57,373 (working). That means the parenting benefits that Jane receives keep her family just at the poverty line. Working, as you might hope, actually raises Jane’s family out of poverty.</p>
<p>By contrast the poverty line for a single person not in work was A$22,211 and in work, A$27,392. So even after paying income tax, a single person on a median income would be comfortably out of poverty.</p>
<h2>Childcare and other costs of working</h2>
<p>The Treasurer and article in The Australian noted above are silent on the issue of childcare and the financial costs of working. This is strange because, unless Jane has a relative who can provide care for free, childcare for her four year old and after-school care for her seven year old and 10 year old are crucial for her to work. </p>
<p>The government has reintroduced its childcare reform package from the Budget in the September Omnibus Bill. This is important, but Ministers Christian Porter MP and Simon Birmingham MP insist they will not “add” childcare to <a href="https://ministers.education.gov.au/birmingham/paying-australias-child-care-reforms">“the nation’s credit card”</a> but must fund it by trading off with other social security cuts. This tradeoff includes family benefits, <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/where-to-for-welfare">as explained here</a>, which will make many families worse off. </p>
<p>Even with childcare, for a single parent with four kids, parenting is pretty demanding. What if they get sick? How far is work and school from home? How can after-school sport be managed? The financial costs of working such as commuting and clothes, will also be challenging for Jane. </p>
<p>Even assuming that there is a suitable job available, there will be many situations where the financial incentives are not sufficient. Jane needs to weigh up all the costs and benefits when making a work decision.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68158/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Miranda Stewart receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is on the tax advisory committee providing independent advice for the Australian Council of Social Service. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Ingles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite media reports that single parents might find relying on welfare payments more appealing than working, analysis shows they are better off working and more than half in Australia are.Miranda Stewart, Professor and Director, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityDavid Ingles, Senior Research Fellow, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/438152015-06-25T11:54:45Z2015-06-25T11:54:45ZNew push to protect ‘family values’ is a brazen attack on human rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86376/original/image-20150625-12998-13hh7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Get real.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=14352295993616663000&search_tracking_id=rgcofCWy_TF-4-akvWKw3g&searchterm=mother%20father%20child%20hold%20hands&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=199539548">Vinogradov Illya via Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Once again, the Human Rights Council has been hijacked to promote the agendas of states who are trying to undermine the very same human rights the UN is supposed to protect. </p>
<p>A recently circulated draft resolution on “<a href="http://www.ishr.ch/news/protection-family-resolution-increases-vulnerabilities-and-exacerbates-inequalities">protection of the family</a>” looks likely to be passed by the council, even though the text clearly plays into the hands of countries trying to make it legitimate to oppress individuals based on their gender or sexual orientation. </p>
<p>The states sponsoring and supporting this text subjugate women with national laws and fail or refuse to protect the basic rights of LGBT people, never mind offering them equality. And once again, these countries are cynically using the UN’s main human rights body to undermine international human rights.</p>
<p>There has long been a push to use the council to “protect the family” and to promote “traditional values”, but those efforts have been ratcheted up many notches over the past year. Despite those efforts being repeatedly exposed as cynical and pernicious attempts to undermine the rights of women and LGBT people, the current council session has already seen more steps towards this deeply political goal.</p>
<p>Protecting the family sounds like a perfectly benign objective; we like to think of families as safe and warm social units to be nurtured as much as possible. The problem, of course, is what counts as a family – and therefore, what exactly is being protected.</p>
<h2>All shapes and sizes</h2>
<p>These are not questions the backers of this resolution are keen to engage with openly. Families, of course, come in all shapes and sizes. They include heterosexual and homosexual couples with or without children, single parents, foster parents, grandparents, and endless other combinations of people. </p>
<p>This is a crucial and yet unanswered question in the text. Indeed, while the UN has institutional language that explains that families come in many different forms, the drafters of this resolution have refused to include those definitions in the text. The assumption they want to impose, of course, is that “the family” is a heteronormative unit of two parents and their (preferably biological) children.</p>
<p>One irony is that many of the states involved in drafting this resolution, despite being conservative Muslim or Christian countries or criminalising homosexuality, have many citizens who do not conform to these “traditional” notions of the family. Many of their citizens’ families have complicated divisions of labour, depending on grandparents, children or non-relatives to be primary carers while parents seek work far away from “the home”. </p>
<p>And all of the sponsoring states are host to single parents, who would not naturally meet these conservative criteria for family.</p>
<p>Even if those issues were addressed between now and the draft resolution being finalised there remains another seemingly insurmountable issue: the use of the family as a site for continuing abuses and subjugation of individual members.</p>
<h2>The sum of their parts</h2>
<p>On the surface, protecting the family looks like a good thing for human rights. Families of all kinds can provide social and economic structures and support to protect their members, protecting and upholding their individual rights. But that, of course, is not always the case. </p>
<p>Many countries’ laws ensure that the family perpetuates <a href="http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/family/docs/IDF2015/backgroundnote.pdf">gender inequality</a> and <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/03/women-decry-lebanon-domestic-violence-law-2014327115352486894.html">other human rights abuses</a> – and even outside of those states, there are families where abuses are rife and rights are undermined by that institutional structure. UN human rights experts have long pointed to the family as a site for violence against women and children, as well as continued subjugation of vulnerable individuals.</p>
<p>The question is which is more important: the family, or the individuals who make it up? The family’s existence wholly depends on individuals, but the reverse is not true. The UN Human Rights Council has a mandate to protect individuals’ rights, not the rights of social institutions, but that is of course irrelevant to states that view it as a forum for promoting their own agendas – particularly when those agendas seek to undermine the whole premise of individual human rights.</p>
<p>Plenty of other self-serving conservative moves have gotten through the council in recent years. During the council’s early years, from 2006, it was used as forum for Muslim states who wanted to limit freedom of expression by establising a so-called <a href="http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/AllSymbols/AFE565E9560973C9C1256C93004A41E0/$File/G0215272.pdf?OpenElement">right against religious defamation</a>. In 2009, Sri Lanka <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/05/27/us-srilanka-un-rights-idUSTRE54Q5XP20090527">managed to secure a resolution</a> enshrining its sovereign right to deal with domestic issues without interference – even though the “domestic issue” in question involved <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/21/sri-lanka-tamils-subjected-to-horrific-abuse-after-2009-civil-war-says-report">the slaughter of tens of thousands of Tamils</a> by Sri Lankan state forces. </p>
<p>More recently, attempts to protect human rights defenders have been derailed by oppressive regimes who successfully won the right to <a href="http://www.ishr.ch/news/human-rights-council-28th-session-adopts-5-resolutions-significance-human-rights-defenders">block any NGO</a> from participating in an HRC forum for any reason.</p>
<p>Little wonder, then, that the council is being used as pawn to shore up an absurdly specific and highly conservative definition of the family. It remains to be seen who will stand up to this mendacious effort.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43815/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosa Freedman receives funding from the British Academy and from the Society of Legal Scholars</span></em></p>A bloc of conservative countries is mounting a new push to enshrine “family values” in the UN’s Human Rights Council. What they really want is rather more sinister.Rosa Freedman, Senior Lecturer (Law), University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/421422015-05-22T13:04:26Z2015-05-22T13:04:26ZWhy single mothers are more likely to get ill when they get older<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82682/original/image-20150522-32555-10oimhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The impact of motherhood</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Evidence shows lone mothers suffer from <a href="http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2015/04/10/jech-2014-205149">poorer health</a> on average than women with partners. But the situation isn’t as clear cut as this might suggest. </p>
<p>For physical health, many of the observed differences between lone and partnered mothers are mediated by <a href="http://www.cmaj.ca/content/156/5/639.short">socio-economic factors</a>. That means, once you account for the difference in mothers’ income and status, whether they’re single or not has little impact on their health.</p>
<p>But a gap for mental health is much harder to explain in this way. Lone mothers are much more likely to <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953699001045">suffer from depression</a> and mental ill health even after their socio-economic position is accounted for.</p>
<p>This picture recently became even more complex. A recent <a href="http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2015/04/10/jech-2014-205149">Harvard study</a> showed women that women who had ever experienced lone parenthood were more likely to have health problems after the age of 50 - even if they had long ceased to be single parents.</p>
<p>The scarring effect of lone parenthood on health outcomes is not yet well understood. There is <a href="http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2015/04/10/jech-2014-205149">emerging evidence</a> that lone parenthood has lasting effects on women’s economic outcomes, including their wealth, income and employability. But the new study showed that, in England, even after adjusting for these factors, health differences still remained.</p>
<h1>Lingering problems</h1>
<p>So what other explanation might there be for health deficits among previously lone parents? The Harvard study suggests that a lack of social support from other family members may be one possible explanation for poorer health. Another is that the stresses of combining work and family may have contributed towards a higher risk of poor health in later life.</p>
<p>An alternative hypothesis is that poor mental health among lone mothers may in itself be an important driver of physical health problems later in life. Poor mental health frequently precedes physical health problems, and is an <a href="http://www.fph.org.uk/relationship_with_physical_health_and_healthy_lifestyles">important risk factor</a> for a range of health problems such as coronary heart disease. A lack of social support among lone mothers has a direct and important effect on mental well-being, and it may be through this channel that we see links to later-life health outcomes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82684/original/image-20150522-32558-14nvsko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82684/original/image-20150522-32558-14nvsko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82684/original/image-20150522-32558-14nvsko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82684/original/image-20150522-32558-14nvsko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82684/original/image-20150522-32558-14nvsko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82684/original/image-20150522-32558-14nvsko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82684/original/image-20150522-32558-14nvsko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Work-life balance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lone mothers may also face greater difficulties in reconciling work and family life, as they do not have an additional adult to share chores and childcare with. This may also help explain their higher rates of mental health problems. However <a href="http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/sites/default/files/files/Lone%20mothers,%20work%20and%20depression.pdf">my own research</a> for the Nuffield Foundation has shown that work can lead to substantial improvements in mental health among lone mothers. Indeed, in the mid-2000s, lone mothers who worked were no more likely to have poor mental health than those with partners, and had much better mental health than those not in work.</p>
<p>As more women have joined the workforce, employment has become an increasingly important provider of identity and self-esteem, including for lone mothers. These factors are as important to mental health as the financial benefits of employment.</p>
<p>But being able to achieve a satisfactory balance between work and childcare is also important to mental health. It is <a href="http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/sites/default/files/files/Lone%20mothers,%20work%20and%20depression.pdf">more important</a> than level of earnings, type of job, or the career prospects that lone mothers hold. And increasing amounts of government-subsidised childcare in the UK has made this balance easier for lone mothers to achieve. </p>
<h2>Greater recognition</h2>
<p>Policy makers should also recognise the diversity of experience of lone parents, and the risks of poor health vary greatly. Those that divorce, for example, appear to face <a href="http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2015/04/10/jech-2014-205149">worse health outcomes</a> at older ages than those that have children outside of marriage or are widowed.</p>
<p>This perhaps reflects the fact that divorced women, who have spent much of their time in a relationship, are most likely to have expected to rely on their partner for their economic well-being in the future. Data from the <a href="https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/bhps">British Household Panel Survey</a> showed that these women are most likely to have reduced their employment or moved to part-time work upon becoming parents. As a result, they may suffer greater economic penalties to single parenthood than those that become single parents while already alone.</p>
<p>Today, with more than <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/288807/sj-indicator-2014.pdf">more than 40%</a> of children having experienced some time living in single-parent households by the age of 16, the health of lone mothers matters more than ever. Health inequalities have increasingly risen up the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-conversation-on-health-inequalities">public health agenda</a>. But lone mothers, who remain among one of the most economically disadvantaged groups, continue to face health risks that are even worse than those for other similarly economically disadvantaged women. And they remain largely absent from major public health reviews.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Harkness received funding from the Nuffield Foundation to carry out research on lone parents, employment and mental health.</span></em></p>New research shows how complex the effect of lone parenting can be, even after children have grown up.Susan Harkness, Reader in Social Policy, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/361582015-03-18T12:04:47Z2015-03-18T12:04:47ZStable families, not ‘traditional’ ones, key to children’s education success<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69049/original/image-20150114-3883-11yu06s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lone parents should not be pariahs.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mother and son via Kalcutta/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A lot of previous <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674364080">research</a> has suggested that young people living in single-mother households are at an educational disadvantage. But our new study looking at the lives of 10,000 teenagers suggests that this is not true. A stable family, even if it is a lone-parent one, is the best place to grow up. </p>
<p>If you believe the headline writers, lone-mothers are <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2877774/The-single-mother-eight-children-planning-lavish-Christmas-funded-benefits-worth-2-200-MONTH.html">feckless, benefit draining</a>, irresponsible, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1254164/Single-mother-Britain-Three-women-explain-babies-dont-need-father.html">teenagers</a>. But of course they’re not. Even if you attempted to characterise “single mums” as one homogeneous group, as the media and politicians can’t avoid doing, you would fail miserably. </p>
<p>These families are often compared and contrasted to the so-called <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04l0gf3">“traditional family”, held-up as some sort of gold standard</a> of what constitutes a healthy and functioning family unit. </p>
<h2>Families are fluid</h2>
<p>But the “traditional family” is something of a post-war invention – and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-perfect-family-has-created-an-ethical-and-moral-vacuum-31339">idealism that surrounds it</a> is seriously flawed. Families are complex and fluid units. </p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/berj.3179/abstract">New research</a> by Claudia Galindo and me in the British Educational Research Journal highlights the need to recognise that families are ever-changing. Seeing family structure as some sort of static entity is problematic. It’s important to collect evidence that can dispel myths about certain family structures, such as lone-mother households. </p>
<p>We were interested in how family structure is associated with educational outcomes. Between 2004 and 2007, we tracked the family structure and stability of 10,000 young people in the four years leading up to the end of compulsory education (between the ages of 13 and 16). We wanted to know if young people who had experienced a change in family structure were less likely to stay in education. </p>
<p>We were not concerned with the nature of the change – a divorce or separation, for example – but simply whether there had been a change. But we wanted to see if a young person living in a stable, lone-parent household, is really at an educational disadvantage. </p>
<h2>What English families look like</h2>
<p>Drawing on data from the <a href="https://www.education.gov.uk/ilsype/workspaces/public/wiki/LSYPE">Longitudinal Study of Young People in England</a> we were able to examine the impact of a young person’s family stability and structure on whether or not they were likely to stay on in education. </p>
<p>The majority, or 55% of young people, lived in a stable, married biological family, with 5% living in a stable, married step-family between the ages of 13 and 16. About 20% of the young people lived in stable, lone-mother families, and 2% in stable lone-father families. Another 4% lived in stable, cohabiting families with parents who were not married – 2% of these were biological and 3% step parents. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69037/original/image-20150114-3879-1b7pmf2.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69037/original/image-20150114-3879-1b7pmf2.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69037/original/image-20150114-3879-1b7pmf2.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69037/original/image-20150114-3879-1b7pmf2.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69037/original/image-20150114-3879-1b7pmf2.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69037/original/image-20150114-3879-1b7pmf2.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69037/original/image-20150114-3879-1b7pmf2.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69037/original/image-20150114-3879-1b7pmf2.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Percentage distribution of young people by family structure between 2004-2007.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Longitudinal Study of Young People in England</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another 13% of young people had experienced some kind of instability to their family structure between the ages of 13 and 16 years of age. Of these, only 89% had only experienced one change during that time. The most common change in family structure was from a married family to a lone-mother family. </p>
<h2>Instability pushes up drop-out</h2>
<p>We found that young people who had experienced family instability were one third less likely to stay in education after 16-years-old. This was the case after accounting for background characteristics including income, changes in income, and prior achievement. Our results also indicated that young people in stable, lone-mother and lone-father families were just as likely to stay in education as those in stable, married households. </p>
<p>But lone-mother households are more likely to experience poverty. It is this that <a href="http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/2028-education-poverty-theory.pdf">results in educational disadvantage</a> – not necessarily the make-up of the family unit. </p>
<p>Separating out young people from cohabitating biological families from those in cohabitating step families was also enlightening. For example, for those young people who resided in a stable, cohabitating family that included a step parent, we found that they were significantly less likely to stay in school than their counterparts in cohabitating biological families. </p>
<p>In contrast, there were no discernible differences between those young people living with both biological parents who were married, and those who were living with both biological parents who were cohabitating and not married. </p>
<h2>Communication is key</h2>
<p>Young people who drop out of school tend to fade out gradually from the education system. So we concluded that there are plenty of opportunities for families and schools to implement preventative measures specially designed for young people who may be at risk of not continuing their education after the end of secondary school. </p>
<p>Ensuring effective communication channels between families and schools is vital for all aspects of a young person’s education. But it is particularly salient for young people who may be struggling due to the breakdown of their parents’ relationship. Schools need to build relationships with parents and encourage families to share information that allows schools to support young people during difficult times. </p>
<hr>
<p>Next read: <a href="https://theconversation.com/parenting-is-not-the-key-to-tackling-inequality-33260">Parenting is not the key to tackling inequality
</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36158/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gillian Hampden-Thompson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Growing up in a one parent family doesn’t matter, as long as it’s a stable one.Gillian Hampden-Thompson, Professor of Education, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/167212013-08-13T04:14:54Z2013-08-13T04:14:54ZElection 2013 Issues: Australians, one and all?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28834/original/y847qjmt-1375854227.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Electorally, we are assumed to live in an economy, not a society which protects its most vulnerable members.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/Viewminder</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Welcome to the The Conversation’s <strong>Election 2013 State of the Nation</strong> essays. These articles by leading experts in their field provide an in-depth look at the key policy challenges affecting Australia as the nation heads to the polls. Today, we examine social inclusion, equality and addressing Indigenous disadvantage.</em></p>
<p>Politics and policy during elections offer a compressed vision of what the contenders for power decide will win votes and what they hope to achieve. </p>
<p>Voters have been told for years that the role of government is primarily to make economic work for GDP growth. But the constant debates on surpluses, deficits, spending and cuts leaves little space for debating social policy directions and values of equity, fairness and social cohesion. </p>
<p>While economic growth and engagement are important, both individually and as a society, making these the basis for policy decisions likely to cause serious harm to our social ethos and, more specifically, to those who lose out. </p>
<p>Electorally, we are assumed to live in an economy not a society. Even general policies tend to be discussed and justified via their economic contribution: better education funding = more jobs; more help with disability = more able to find paid work. Even when a policy could be seen as making a social contribution (such as the government’s out-of-school care package) the justification is often only economic (to make it easier for more women to find jobs, which will boost the economy). </p>
<p>When asked about what’s important to them, <a href="http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/acqol/auwbi/survey-reports/index.php">most people value social well-being</a>: relationships, community, dignity, belonging, respect, being valued and feeling useful. And as the World Health Organisation notes, social factors have an <a href="http://www.who.int/social_determinants/en/">important impact on health and well-being</a>. </p>
<p>So why do these issues fail to raise much political interest in contenders for government?</p>
<p>Neither major party has issued policies that indicate they have future visions of a healthy, inclusive, optimistic society. Their push to identify most voters as self-interested consumers commodifies and coarsens election choices. It leaves little space for discussion of what else matters and legitimises targeting those not seen as economic contributors. </p>
<p>The current election agenda and gaps suggest this election will be the first where major parties compete to be seen as tougher on some of our most vulnerable groups, such as Indigenous Australians and sole parents.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29062/original/s4w442r4-1376291446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29062/original/s4w442r4-1376291446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29062/original/s4w442r4-1376291446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29062/original/s4w442r4-1376291446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29062/original/s4w442r4-1376291446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29062/original/s4w442r4-1376291446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29062/original/s4w442r4-1376291446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Neither major party seems to have a vision for a healthy, inclusive, optimistic society.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image from shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reviewing existing policies</h2>
<p>Alongside implementing new policies, it’s important to take stock and assess what works and what doesn’t, and abandon poor social policies. There is ample social data that could inform policies for reducing inequalities of groups that have lost out.</p>
<p>But despite the government claiming to practice evidence-based policy making, it has regularly failed to use its own data. We hear little, for example, about the <a href="http://www.socialinclusion.gov.au/">Social Inclusion</a> program, set up in the early Rudd days and the <a href="http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/our-responsibilities/indigenous-australians/programs-services/closing-the-gap">Closing the Gap</a> program to redress Indigenous disadvantage. The latter prompted many reports, via the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, but there is little evidence these are read, let alone used. </p>
<p>As a result, a number of poor social policies have been introduced, continued or expanded: </p>
<ul>
<li>Widespread <a href="https://theconversation.com/prejudiced-policymaking-underlies-labors-cuts-to-single-parent-payments-10151">cuts to sole parent payments</a>, including most who had jobs, that fail to recognise parenting time demands and create serious poverty</li>
<li>Low levels of <a href="http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/newstart-allowance">Newstart payments</a>, despite <a href="http://www.acoss.org.au/media/release/Govt_must_heed_call_from_yet_another_report_to_raise_Newstart">wide evidence</a> of its inadequacy for job seekers </li>
<li>Changed criteria for the <a href="http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/disability-support-pension">Disability Support Pension</a> reduce the numbers that are eligible for the higher payment </li>
<li>The Northern Territory intervention, started by Howard but adopted by the ALP as <a href="http://www.indigenous.gov.au/stronger-futures/">Stronger Futures</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/income-management">Income management</a>, which is now spreading widely to a range of welfare recipients</li>
<li>Closing the Gap programs that fail because they don’t meet basic criteria for what works. </li>
</ul>
<p>The imposition of ever more punitive conditions on welfare recipients are excused as being for their own good – getting sole parents, people with disabilities, and other disadvantaged Australians into paid work. These controls are increasing as more categories of payment recipients are being put on compulsorily income management, which restricts where they spend at least half of their benefits incomes. </p>
<p>All of these welfare recipients face external barriers in finding paid work, particularly in a time when <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6202.0">nearly 700,000 Australians</a> are “looking for work”. This number alone grossly exceeds the number of advertised job vacancies by a factor of at least five to one. Add in the levels of skill and recent experience required by employers, geography, transport, age, language skills, minor visible disabilities and the needs of children, and most will be rejected by employers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29063/original/fqsz5wt6-1376291580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29063/original/fqsz5wt6-1376291580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29063/original/fqsz5wt6-1376291580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29063/original/fqsz5wt6-1376291580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29063/original/fqsz5wt6-1376291580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29063/original/fqsz5wt6-1376291580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29063/original/fqsz5wt6-1376291580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Punitive measures aren’t helping to get more welfare recipients into work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/amandabhslater</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The official assumption that there are enough jobs out there for all becomes ever less credible. Add in to the picture the 300,000-plus recipients of the inadequate Newstart allowance of <a href="http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/newstart-allowance">around $497 per fortnight</a> who are <a href="http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/07_2012/stps10.pdf">exempted from job seeking</a> and the logic of poverty pay becomes even more absurd. </p>
<p>The Greens and some lobby groups of sole parents have been trying to raise these issues but the major parties ignore them despite none delivering good outcomes.</p>
<p>So which social issues should be on the election agenda? </p>
<h2>Sole parents and Newstart</h2>
<p>There is a campaign by sole parents and some supporting groups to put all sole parents with dependent children back onto the parenting payments. This would not only increase the payment rate, it would also allow parents to do more part-time work before their payments are reduced. </p>
<p>The 2006 “<a href="http://www.aifs.gov.au/cfca/bibliographies/soleparentfamilieswelfare.php">welfare to work</a>” reforms placed sole parents who entered the welfare system on Newstart if the youngest child was aged eight years or older. This was extended by the Gillard government in January this year, moving all sole parents with children aged over eight from <a href="http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/parenting-payment">parenting payments</a> to the lower-paying Newstart. </p>
<p>This occurred despite the lack of evidence that these 2006 changes improved the rates of employment. <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6224.0.55.001">Australian Bureau of Statistics figures</a> showed no related changes in finding jobs between 2005 to 2011, and a <a href="http://www.melbourneinstitute.com/hilda/">recent report</a> showed sole parents’ income had dropped over the same period. As most of those transferred in January were already in paid work, the government’s claim that the cuts would push them into paid work doesn’t stack up. </p>
<p>The data and experiences suggest that parents of children under 16 should be returned to parenting payments, as this encourages more part time work than Newstart.</p>
<h2>Compulsory income management</h2>
<p>This program was part of the original NT emergency response, and is often ignored as it is assumed to be targeted at Indigenous people. It has, however, already been extended to other welfare recipients in the NT and to six other (pilot) sites, including Bankstown and Shepparton, despite the absence of evidence that it has worked in the NT. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/11_2012/nim_first_evaluation_report.pdf">stage-one report</a> stated the data offered little significant evidence of benefits. The research, led by the Social Policy Research Centre, also expressed concern about the possible damage the program could have on recipient self esteem and a sense of agency, as Centrelink controlled how they spent at least half their income. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29065/original/h2kfktwx-1376291947.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29065/original/h2kfktwx-1376291947.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29065/original/h2kfktwx-1376291947.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29065/original/h2kfktwx-1376291947.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29065/original/h2kfktwx-1376291947.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29065/original/h2kfktwx-1376291947.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29065/original/h2kfktwx-1376291947.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As well as the Northern Territory, income management schemes are run in Bankstown and Shepparton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/POOL/Alan Porritt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin ignored these findings and has since announced further categories of payments including ex-prisoners and young people at school. These moves suggest the government will increasingly take control over the spending of payments of any group they consider needs order and discipline.</p>
<p>The compulsory program should be terminated, with those who find it useful being transferred to <a href="http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/centrepay">Centrepay</a> (where customers can pay bills as regular deductions from their Centrelink payments) or a voluntary version. Any recipient of payments who is proven to have money problems should be individually case managed. This would also save money as A$1 billion-plus has already been spent or allocated. </p>
<h2>Closing the Gap</h2>
<p>Here the major parties’ rhetoric often assume problems come from deficits in people and Aboriginal communities so the programs fail to recognise external cultural and structural factors that damage their communities. The gap is not just vertical, but also horizontal because, as non-Indigenous Australians, we fail to acknowledge what we need to learn from them. </p>
<p>Starting bottom up and engaging local people in partnership, rather than deciding in Canberra, would improve outcomes. The question is how more autonomy and local decision making can link into wider results that offer better options to all, including us.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Australia as a unified nation does not mean imposing a one-size-fits-all model on very diverse populations; it <em>does</em> mean offering a fair go to all who share this country. </p>
<p>This must start by addressing these serious deficits in the election policy agendas of both major parties and make sure these issues are not ignored. The over-emphasising of primarily economic needs, interspersed with increased social control of those who fail to fit in, will not create the necessary resilient ties we need to nurture unity in this nation state. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16721/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eva Cox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Welcome to the The Conversation’s Election 2013 State of the Nation essays. These articles by leading experts in their field provide an in-depth look at the key policy challenges affecting Australia as…Eva Cox, Professorial Fellow Jumbunna IHL, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155262013-06-25T12:05:40Z2013-06-25T12:05:40ZStrong support for role of state in enforcing child maintenance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/26167/original/d2b562f9-1372159064.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Single parents are being left to their own devices.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/stephanski</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In most countries children in lone parent families are at increased risk of experiencing poverty. In 2011, the proportion of lone parents below the poverty line in EU countries reached 33.5%, compared with an overall poverty rate of 16.8%. </p>
<p>One means of tackling this high poverty rate, in addition to increased employment, is through the payment of maintenance from ex-partners when families separate. However this is something that the UK has long struggled to facilitate with any consistency.</p>
<h2>Administrative failures</h2>
<p>The introduction of the Child Support Agency (CSA) in 1993 was supposed to turn around a situation where too few lone parents received child support. Instead, it has become a byword for administrative failure. A number of subsequent reforms tried to streamline administration processes and simplify the assessment formula. These efforts met with some success, but largely failed to achieve the desired step change in numbers receiving child maintenance.</p>
<p>In most countries, the collection of child support is also used to offset any safety net benefits being paid to low income families. That used to be the case in the UK, and was part of the rationale for reform in the 1990s. This led to organisations such as the <a href="http://www.cpag.org.uk/">Child Poverty Action Group</a> condemning the government for putting the Treasury before children.</p>
<h2>Reforming the role of the state</h2>
<p>This was changed in 2010 so that recipients keep all of their child support, rather than seeing it used to reduce benefit payments – and parents looking after children have no obligation to take forward an application. Whilst these changes may be seen to be to the advantage of low income parents, in practice it means that government has no direct financial interest in being involved in the successful payment of maintenance.</p>
<p>This lack of financial interest, plus a general concern to reduce state spending (the CSA previously costing over £½ billion a year to run), and a feeling that the best arrangements would be achieved if parents could come to their own agreements, has led to the gradual reduction of the state’s role in assessing and collecting maintenance. </p>
<p>Under recent reforms, parents may seek advice and check online guidance on child support, but the expectation is that they will be able to agree on how much child maintenance will flow between them. Those needing state assistance will pay handsomely in terms of an initial charge, plus ongoing fees that affect both the payer and the recipient.</p>
<h2>The public have their say</h2>
<p>In <a href="http://www.natcen.ac.uk/media/1114592/bsa30_childmaintenance%20-%20final.pdf">research published this week</a> with a number of colleagues for the <a href="http://www.natcen.ac.uk/study/british-social-attitudes-30th-report">British Social Attitudes 30th Report</a>, we see how far this move towards private arrangements is supported by the British public. </p>
<p>Given how many parents are affected by family break-down, many will either have direct experience of the child maintenance system, or know people who have. We also looked at how the public think that the level of child support should be assessed, something which is surprisingly rare.</p>
<p>The findings are stark. Whilst some people were unsure how to respond, some 60% thought that the law should be setting a minimum amount for child maintenance, rather than leaving it to parents to decide. Only 17% disagreed with this view. </p>
<p>There was also strong support for the thought that the state should be using the law to enforce child maintenance obligations. Only 20% of the public believed that the law should never force fathers who are not living with their children to pay child maintenance, compared with 59% who disagreed. </p>
<p>These views tended to hold across the political spectrum, and among those of differing incomes and educational backgrounds. Parents at the sharp end of policy decisions – those who have an obligation to pay child maintenance – were only a little less likely than others to favour government involvement. Almost twice as many people supported a role for government as those who opposed it.</p>
<p>An underlying issue in setting rates of child support is the extent to which it should be about children sharing in the living standard of the absent parent, as opposed to just keeping children out of poverty. Under the current scheme, parents living apart from children pay a set percentage of their income based on the number of children being supported, with a reduction for any overnight stays. </p>
<p>The amounts of maintenance believed by most people to be suitable go beyond the current levels, except for some poorer fathers. In short, child maintenance was seen to be set at too low a level. People believed that payments should aim beyond reducing poverty, and there was also a reluctance to reduce child maintenance levels for a limited amount of overnight care.</p>
<h2>What’s next?</h2>
<p>The CSA has been subject to strong lobbying from many parents, and others, concerned at its apparent inability to deploy its far-reaching powers and achieve regular payment of maintenance. Only relatively small amounts of benefit payments were ever reclaimed, and in recent years that clawback has ended. Effects on reducing child poverty appear to have been muted.</p>
<p>The next phase of reform will see a continued decline in the role of the state, and a greater emphasis on parents coming to their own arrangements. Recent changes to legal aid also reduce the support available for going to court on family matters. When it comes to arranging child support after relationships break down, many low income families may feel that they are largely on their own during one of the more stressful periods of their lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/15526/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen McKay has previously received funding from the Department for Work and Pensions covering child support issues, including research quoted in the Henshaw review of child support. He also received funding from the Nuffield Foundation, which paid for the research behind this report.
</span></em></p>In most countries children in lone parent families are at increased risk of experiencing poverty. In 2011, the proportion of lone parents below the poverty line in EU countries reached 33.5%, compared…Stephen McKay, Professor in Social Research, University of LincolnLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/128032013-03-31T21:10:10Z2013-03-31T21:10:10ZSingle mothers need education, not welfare cuts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21317/original/qspttqpc-1363322844.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1000%2C657&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Single mothers on welfare need support for further education, not a cut to government payments.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Single mother image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Unpopular <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/groups-fear-parenting-payment-changes/story-e6frf7kf-1226492039937">Government cuts</a>, introduced last year that have pushed more than 100,000 <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-can-the-government-justify-a-policy-that-penalises-working-sole-parents-12643">sole parents</a> onto lower support payments, has left many families reeling with single mothers experiencing particular disadvantage.</p>
<p>The government rationale for transferring sole parents whose children turn eight onto the lower Newstart allowance, is to encourage more back into the workforce. </p>
<p>But if the government wants to help these families out of their precarious positions and low paid employment, we need to see long-term policies focused on improving access to education and training, not simply cuts to support payments.</p>
<h2>The big picture</h2>
<p>According <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/F4B15709EC89CB1ECA25732C002079B2?opendocument">to the ABS</a>, in 2005 almost 22% of Australian families with children under 15 years of age were one-parent families, with 87% of these families headed by women. </p>
<p>More than six out of ten families relied on government pensions and allowances as their principle income source. </p>
<p>More than twice as many Australian single parents as partnered parents report not being able to pay utility bills on time and seek financial assistance from families and friends or from welfare or community groups. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1525/sop.2002.45.3.219?uid=1173488&uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=3&uid=67&uid=62&uid=1173456&sid=21101817482021">Women almost everywhere</a> are more likely to live in poverty than men because of lower labour force participation and lower earning capacity.</p>
<p>This is because women are more likely to work in part-time, poorly paid or poverty-level wage industries known as “pink collar” work and they tend to be the primary carer of children.</p>
<p>But economic disadvantage is only one of many factors to limit the life chances of single mothers and their children. </p>
<p>Single mothers are also more susceptible to: <a href="http://www.csmc.org.au/?q=housingstress">housing insecurity; limitations to mobility</a>; <a href="http://www.humanrights.gov.au/sex_discrimination/publication/gender_gap/">debt accumulation</a>; <a href="https://researchers.anu.edu.au/publications/40160">poor mental</a> and <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/25564688?versionId=45678487">physical health; disability</a>; <a href="https://researchers.anu.edu.au/publications/40160">low levels of social support</a>; <a href="http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/Homepage.asp?Name=elspeth.mcinnes">experiences of physical, sexual and psychological violence including domestic violence</a>; and <a href="https://researchers.anu.edu.au/publications/10148">experiences of child abuse</a>.</p>
<h2>Political stigma and hard policy</h2>
<p>This all makes the lot of a mother raising a child or children alone a hard road indeed. None of which is helped by hard-nosed, bi-partisan government responses to single parents on welfare that both add further stress to family life, as well as further entrenching the popular idea that single mothers are welfare addicts or cheats.</p>
<p>Former prime minister John Howard <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Sixmonth-wage-subsidy-aimed-at-chronic-jobless/2005/04/14/1113251737994.html">proclaimed a “carrot and stick” approach</a> to moving single mothers off welfare and into the workplace, casting these women as disobedient children. </p>
<p>While current prime minister Julia Gillard is less vocal, Labor’s policies amount to the same thing. Between the brow-beating women receive from welfare authorities and the welfare-mum stereotypes perpetuated in tabloid media, there is little dignity in being a single mother in contemporary Australian society. </p>
<h2>Pink collar work</h2>
<p>Forcing mothers into vulnerable low paid employment might alleviate government budgetary burdens in the short term but there will be longer term social repercussions if efforts are not made to break the poverty cycle.</p>
<p>Education is, and has always been, the key.</p>
<p>Compared with partnered parents single parents tend to have lower educational levels. The <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/F4B15709EC89CB1ECA25732C002079B2?opendocument">ABS reports</a> that in 2006 15% more single parents than partnered parents had left school before year 12 while twice as many partnered parents than single parents held a bachelor degree or higher qualification. </p>
<p>However, the same report also states lone parents in 2006 were more likely to be studying than partnered parents, mostly part-time, and mostly at a TAFE or higher education institutions.</p>
<p>Clearly, they are taking independent measures to improve their lives, despite what some would have us believe. So how do we support these efforts?</p>
<p>Increasing financial support is one way of helping mothers take up education and training opportunities. But this would need to be comprehensive and substantial.</p>
<p>For example, schemes like the current <a href="http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/pensioner-education-supplement">Pensioner Education Supplement</a> at $62.40 per fortnight would hardly cover the cost of getting to university each week. </p>
<p>While the once-off <a href="http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/education-entry-payment">Education Entry Payment</a> of $208 will purchase a few text books, it certainly won’t cover twice-yearly amenities fees. </p>
<p>While the cost of child care alone averages at $80 per day, the maximum in <a href="http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/child-care-benefit">Child Care Benefits</a> that can be claimed is $195 per week. </p>
<p>All this means that single mothers face chronic financial stress if they want to improve their education.</p>
<p>But more than financial support, government policy should be about providing or assisting other organisations such as <a href="http://www.wire.org.au/">WIRE</a>; to establish programs that provide advice, resources and information on such matters as how to access entry levels at secondary and post-secondary institutions, educational pathways, coaching and mentoring.</p>
<p>Improved resources must be coupled with these kinds of effective programs in order for single families to break the cycle of disadvantage.</p>
<h2>Education is the key</h2>
<p>The need for women’s access to education has long been established, especially in <a href="http://www.guninetwork.org/resources/he-articles/women2019s-access-to-higher-education">development literature</a>. There is a a strong correlation between access to education and increasing levels of female productivity and income levels. <a href="http://www.guninetwork.org/resources/he-articles/women2019s-access-to-higher-education">This research</a> shows that when women gain access to education they also become more aware of opportunities, more self confident, open-minded and competitive.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1691&context=edupapers">recent publication</a> on mature age women returning to study showed that further education not only puts women in a more competitive position in the workforce, but they also see significant improvements in self-esteem, self-awareness, and social skills.</p>
<p>All in all, given the disadvantages single mothers’ experience and the potential transformative effects of an education, it’s not hard to see that supporting access to education is better a <a href="http://cjtc.ucsc.edu/docs/wp_WelfareRecipients_postsecondaryEducation.pdf">policy position</a>. </p>
<p>Ultimately, shifting women on to Newstart will only continue the interminable cycle of low paid work, unemployment and poverty. </p>
<p>Educating single mothers won’t necessarily break the back of systemic problems but support and encouragement in gaining higher levels of education and training could and likely would improve the lot of some of the most disadvantaged people in Australia — single mothers and their children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12803/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvonne Joyce does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Unpopular Government cuts, introduced last year that have pushed more than 100,000 sole parents onto lower support payments, has left many families reeling with single mothers experiencing particular disadvantage…Yvonne Joyce, PhD candidate and sessional academic, Faculty of Higher Education, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/101562012-10-16T19:00:54Z2012-10-16T19:00:54ZTaking the big stick to single parents is not the answer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16567/original/43pwyjj6-1350357258.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Single mothers such as Michelle Daly have high aspirations for their children. Reducing their payments won't help achieve them.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>New legislation was <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd1112a/12bd164">passed last week</a> to move single parents off the parenting payment, and onto the Newstart Allowance once their youngest child turns eight. Advocates for this change suggest that the legislation will push certain groups to get off “welfare” and into work which will end “the corrosive aimlessness of welfare”. </p>
<p>We know that the Newstart Allowance is considerably less money than the parenting payment, and the government intends to save around $700 million through the shift. This measure, and others introduced earlier in the year to tighten the rules for teenage mothers, is specifically designed to actively combat “intergenerational welfare dependence”. </p>
<p>These policies commenced under the previous Coalition and Labor governments and aim to change the personal behaviour of certain groups who are seen as being reliant on welfare. </p>
<p>But does a big stick work?</p>
<p>A <a href="http://acoss.org.au/uploads/ACOSS%20Poverty%20Report%202012_Final.pdf">new report</a> into poverty by the Australian Council of Social Service finds that almost half of all Australian children living in poverty are in single-parent families; and 25% of single-parent families live below the poverty line. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.acu.edu.au/463113">Our research</a> at the Institute for Child Protection Studies has indicated that all parents, including single parents and young parents, are very aware of the role employment can play in improving their lives and the wellbeing of their children. Many young mothers are very keen to start planning for this next stage of their lives, including for education and employment. They take on board the idea that employment and training is a way out of poverty. Almost all the younger mothers involved in one study spoke of the wish to create a safe and secure future for their children, and their desire to find a good steady job. </p>
<p>The recent legislative changes regarding the need for young mothers (particularly single mothers) to engage in education and employment reflect a commonly held stereotype that these people are resisting pursuing these goals. However, the findings from a <a href="http://www.acu.edu.au/463395">range of our studies</a> refute this stereotype and provide a more nuanced understanding of the barriers that stand in the way of sole parents achieving their hopes and dreams for themselves and their children. </p>
<p>Our research has also shown that parents who are on the more “generous” parenting payment already struggle financially, with many families concerned about not having enough money to ensure their children’s basic needs are met. A reduction in income support of up to $100 per week could have a significant impact upon parents’ ability to pay for normal everyday activities for their family, including services such as childcare. </p>
<p>The increased participation requirements attached to the Newstart Allowance may also, in some instances, compound financial disadvantage. Almost a quarter of the parents we interviewed had a child with special needs, including physical and intellectual disabilities, developmental delays, or serious behavioural, emotional, psychological or health issues. Parents spoke about the ripple effects that these unmet or ongoing needs had on their families. They experienced high levels of stress that placed pressure on family relationships, leading to an increased risk of family breakdown.</p>
<p>While health services, schools and other services play a critical role in assisting parents to meet the needs of their children, the increased participation requirements can place an increased burden upon these families, and particularly those with children or other relatives with special needs. </p>
<p>One single mother living in a regional town, whose 12-year-old son had a heart attack, was required to travel frequently to the capital city over many months for treatment. In the aftermath of this major life event, the parent reported constant battles with Centrelink about meeting her job-seeking requirements. She felt she needed to be there for her son and other children, and just needed more time. </p>
<p>Many of the families involved in our research experience multiple disadvantage and key barriers that prevent them from participating fully in society. Families experiencing these issues (such as domestic and family violence and mental health issues) also appear to be more likely to experience other problems, such as homelessness, severe financial disadvantage and children’s behavioural and emotional problems. </p>
<p>Governments can and should assist parents in poverty to develop and reach their goals, including employment.</p>
<p>However, policy and service responses should be cautious about future directions which further stigmatise mothers, particularly young mothers. Doing so can actually undermine their willingness (and sometimes their ability) to engage with formal and informal support systems.</p>
<p>While the government seeks to save $700 million by reducing welfare payments, they might consider that further compounding the financial disadvantage of vulnerable children, young people and families will likely lead to a much higher long-term cost incurred in supporting these families who experience the fall out of reduced income support. </p>
<p><em>This article was co-authored by Erin Barry, Communication Co-ordinator at the Institute for Child Protection Studies. Erin has worked in peak bodies within the ACT youth and community sector for the past six years, undertaking a range of policy, advocacy, representation and sector/workforce development activities.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/10156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Institute of Child Protection Studies receives funding from the ACT and Commonwealth governments for research projects.</span></em></p>New legislation was passed last week to move single parents off the parenting payment, and onto the Newstart Allowance once their youngest child turns eight. Advocates for this change suggest that the…Morag McArthur, Professor, Institute of Child Protection Studies, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/31832011-12-14T19:38:45Z2011-12-14T19:38:45ZGirls in single-parent families at greater risk of obesity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/6249/original/cvbdypz8-1323313311.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The sooner we understand the risk factors that make children vulnerable to obesity, the more traction we can gain to reduce this number.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">D. Sharon Pruitt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Australia, girls in single-parent families are at a higher risk of being overweight or obese than children in dual-parent families. This fits with <a href="http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/7/2800/">recent research findings</a> from the United States showing that children in single-parent households are at a higher risk of becoming overweight or obese than those from households with two parents.</p>
<p>A staggering one-in-four children between the ages of five and 17 are overweight or obese. The sooner we understand the risk factors that make children vulnerable, the more traction we can gain to reduce this number. </p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3109/17477166.2011.598938/abstract">Our research indicates</a> that children in single-parent households eat fewer servings of fresh fruit and vegetables, eat more servings of food high in fat and sugar, and spend an extra two hours every week watching television, compared with children in dual-parent families. </p>
<p>The difference in servings per day is relatively small, about half a serve less of fruit and vegetables, and half a serve more of food high in fat and sugar, but clearly this, combined with increased sedentary behaviour, such as watching television, is having a cumulative effect.</p>
<p>But does this mean we should be blaming parents for not doing their job well? Parenting is a tough job, and when you’re on your own, there are extra pressures and less support. </p>
<p>There’s certainly <a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3359/is_2_43/ai_n28565858/?tag=content;col1">good evidence</a> that single mothers experience more role strain than mothers in dual-parent households. Performing both the role of parent and that of wage-earner without support can lead to the sense in single mums that both roles are being compromised. </p>
<h2>Possible causes</h2>
<p>With less time available to perform more roles, single parents may be using the television to help manage. <a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3359/is_2_43/ai_n28565858/?tag=content;col1">Watching television during meals</a> is associated with children eating high-fat food, salty snacks and consuming soft drinks. So time-poor parents may be inadvertently setting up patterns of behaviour that increase the risk for their children of being overweight or obese.</p>
<p>Advertising of food products in Australia is primarily targeted at women as the food purchasers in the family. Evoking guilt is often the main marketing tool used to get busy mums to buy products that are less than optimal choices for children. </p>
<p>A recent<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruentransfer/"> episode of the Gruen Transfer</a> on the ABC, for instance, discussed at length the tactics that marketers use when trying to sell snack bars. Snack bars are by and large high in sugar and saturated fat, but are marketed as a healthy choice. Parents who are time poor are being “guilted” into believing that the purchase of these items are a reasonable compromise, when in fact they are the types of food choice that should be kept as a rare treat.</p>
<h2>Why girls?</h2>
<p>The issue of why girls in single-parent households are at a greater risk of overweight or obesity than boys is an interesting one. Certainly, the data from the United States found that both boys and girls from single-parent families were equally at risk. It may be that girls are less active than boys, or environmental factors could be at play. </p>
<p>Mothers’ perception of neighbourhood safety has been <a href="http://www.hopkinsguides.com/hopkins/ub/citation/19606373/Maternal_perception_of_neighborhood_safety_as_a_predictor_of_child_weight_status:_The_moderating_effect_of_gender_and_assessment_of_potential_mediators_">found</a> to predict higher weight in daughters. If single mums think their neighbourhood is unsafe, they may be less likely to encourage their daughters to go outside to exercise.</p>
<p>But the message for all parents is a simple one – small changes in dietary and sedentary behaviour can have an important effect. Eating less high-fat and high-sugar food and more fruit and vegetables is critical. Switching off the television for a couple of hours a week will also help.</p>
<p>As a society, we need to develop effective ways of getting this message out to all parents. We need to take up the challenge of how to provide more support to those parents doing the job on their own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/3183/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Byrne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In Australia, girls in single-parent families are at a higher risk of being overweight or obese than children in dual-parent families. This fits with recent research findings from the United States showing…Linda Byrne, Lecturer in School of Psychology, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.