Lone Mothers’ Repartnering Trajectories and Health: Does the Welfare Context Matter?

Abstract

We examined the relationship between lone mothers’ repartnering and health in three welfare contexts: the dual-earner, market-oriented, and general family policy model. Drawing on the resources and crisis models, we applied mixture modelling for spell data of the Harmonized Histories data set. We uncovered six distinct repartnering trajectories that varied regarding the timing, type, and stability of higher order unions for different cohorts of lone mothers. Unstable repartnering was more frequent in market-oriented contexts, while contexts with more comprehensive family support fostered more stable repartnering. Although repartnering trajectories were overall not associated with health, these associations differed by welfare context. Mothers experiencing repartnering, though unstable, reported to enjoy better health if living in market-oriented contexts rather than in general or dual-earner contexts. Altogether, our findings suggest that even if higher financial needs in less-generous welfare may translate in more unstable repartnering histories, this seems to have positive spillover effects on mothers’ health.

The effects of unemployment among single mothers on adolescent children’s mental health

“…However, our findings were only significant in the OLS models, but not in FE models, which suggests that these results were confounded by stable unobserved characteristics. Therefore, while re-partnering is an important process that may be linked to well-being in single-mother families (Recksiedler and Bernardi, 2019), we found no consistent evidence that it had compensatory effects for boys or for girls who experienced a maternal job loss.…”

How Family and Other Close Ties Shape Vulnerability Processes

“…Repartnering may be particularly stressful if it deteriorates the relationship with the children's biological father (Berger, Cancian, & Meyer, 2012). Drawing on the resources and crisis models and on the comparative dataset of the Harmonized Histories, Recksiedler and Bernardi (2019) examined the relationship between lone mothers' repartnering and health in three welfare contexts in Europe, according to type of family policy: the dual-earner (family policy supporting gender equity and women's work), marketoriented (domestic and parental work outsourced to the economic market), and general family policy model and support for lone parents (less gender progressive family policy). They uncovered six distinct repartnering trajectories that varied regarding the timing, type, and stability of higher-order unions for different cohorts of lone mothers.…”

Health after union dissolution(s): Cumulative and temporal dynamics

“…Welfare system and social and economic contexts mediate the consequences of critical events, with potential differences however across population groups ( Cooke & Baxter, 2010 ; Biotteau et al 2019 ; Aassve, Betti, Mazzuco, & Mencarini, 2017 ; Recksiedler and Bernardi, 2019 ). France provides an interesting context for the study of union dissolutions and health.…”