Sources of Income for Lone Mother Families: Policy Changes in Britain and The Netherlands and the Experiences of Divorced Women

Abstract

The Netherlands and Britain have treated lone mother families in similar ways in the post-war period. Until very recently they have been alone among countries of the EU in allowing lone mothers to draw benefits without making themselves available for work so long as they have dependent children. At the beginning of the 1990s, both countries attempted (unsuccessfully) to enforce the obligation of ‘absent fathers’ to maintain. In 1996, the Dutch government took decisive steps towards treating lone mothers as workers rather than mothers. In Britain, the last Conservative government began to move in the same direction, something that has been confirmed by the new Labour government. This article reviews the structure and characteristics of lone motherhood in the two countries and the nature of the recent policy changes. It then reports the findings of an exploratory qualitative study of divorced mothers in both countries. The evidence from the interviews reveals the strength of the primary commitment that women in both countries make to care. It also shows the difficulties divorced women face in combining paid and unpaid work, which, we suggest make the pendulum swing from treating lone mothers as mothers, to treating them as workers unrealistic.

Family Policies and Children's School Achievement in Single‐ Versus Two‐Parent Families

“…On the other hand, the growth in single‐parent families could reduce the tolerance and sympathy toward single parents, and subsequently trigger policy stringency. In recent decades, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States have responded to the rise in single parenthood by replacing universal child benefits with means‐tested programs and by reducing welfare benefits for low‐income single‐parent families (Baker, 1995; Clearinghouse, n.d.; Van Drenth, Knijn, & Lewis, 1999). In this situation, the prevalence of single parenthood may be negatively associated with the generosity of family policies.…”

The relationship between paid work and parenthood--a comparison of structures, concepts and developments in the UK and Austria

“…Public nancial and institutional support for families is limited. Whereas former governments related this approach to moral, gender-related assumptions about the traditional nuclear family and traditional roles of mothers and fathers (Brannen, 1999;Drenth, Knijn & Lewis, 1999), the Conservative governments in the 1980s and 1990s emphasised individual 'freedom and choice' as ideological context. Children were, and continue to be, constructed as an individual choice rather than an intrinsic part of the adult life course and of societal obligations (Brannen, 1999).…”

“…In both countries, part-time employment of mothers seems to be the result of the interplay of personal choices and external constraints (Drenth et al, 1999;Tálos, 1999). Therefore, part-time employment may be interpreted as an individual compromise, a reaction to the dif culties of a long work/career break and de cits in (public) childcare often interpreted in terms of the wishes of mothers to take care of their children-but with very real structural constraints.…”

Egenforsørgede eneforsørgere

“…Lister 1996). Den negative kampanjen mot enslige forsørgere slo heller aldri an i befolkningen på den måten regjeringspartiet håpet (Phoenix 1996), likevel finnes det forskning som tyder på at britiske eneforsørgere tok beskyldningene inn over seg (van Drenth et al 1999). Politisk fikk kampanjen relativt små utslag.…”