State, Family and Personal Responsibility: The Changing Balance for Lone Mothers in the United Kingdom

1994 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Millar
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Lone Mothers

Socially Constructing Healthy Eating: A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis of Healthy Eating Information and Advice

2021 ◽  
pp. 104973232110234
Author(s):  
Jo Mackenzie ◽  
Esther Murray
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Healthy Eating ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Nutritional Composition ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Moral Citizenship ◽  
Moral Discourses

A variety of materials offering healthy eating advice have been produced in the United Kingdom to encourage people to eat well and avoid diet-related health issues. By applying a Foucauldian discourse analysis, this research aimed to uncover the discourses used in six healthy eating texts (two state-produced and four commercial texts), how people positioned themselves in relation to these discourses, and the power relations between institutions and the U.K. public. Ten discourses including scientific, thermodynamics, natural, family/caring, emotional, medical, and moral discourses were uncovered and offered up subject positions in relation to moral citizenship and personal responsibility. Through the use of biopower, foods appeared to be categorized as “good” or “bad” foods in which bad foods were considered to be risky to health due to their nutritional composition. Most texts assumed people have the agency to follow the advice provided and failed to consider the readers’ personal contexts.

Contribution of child maintenance to lone mothers’ income in five countries

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mia Hakovirta ◽  
Merita Jokela
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Low Income ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Income Quintile ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Lone Mothers ◽  
Social Transfers ◽  
Child Maintenance

This study uses the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) data from 2013 to study (1) the contribution of child maintenance to the income packages of lone mothers, (2) the proportion of lone mothers receiving child maintenance and the level of child maintenance for those receiving it and (3) the extent to which child maintenance is helping families who may need it the most (those at the low end of the income distribution), compared with families with moderate or higher incomes. Our analysis covers data from five countries: Finland, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States. Our results show that in all countries except the United Kingdom, labour income is an important source of income for lone mothers and less than 40 percent of income comes from social transfers. Child maintenance contributes significantly to the income of lone mothers, particularly in Spain, followed by the United States and Germany. We find the highest coverage of child maintenance receipt in Finland. In the other countries, only one-third of lone mother households receive child maintenance. The median amounts of maintenance are the lowest in the United Kingdom and Finland, but there is great variation in the level of child maintenance within countries. The comparison of the quintile groups reveals that in the United States, the lone mothers in lowest income quintile do not seem to benefit as much from child maintenance compared with the highest income quintiles, whereas in Finland, Germany and Spain, more lone mothers in the low-income quintiles receive maintenance. However, amounts are quite equal across income quintiles.

scholarly journals ‘Glow from the inside out’: Deliciously Ella and the politics of ‘healthy eating’

2020 ◽  
pp. 136754942092186
Author(s):  
Rachel O’Neill
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Healthy Eating ◽  
Healthy Lifestyle ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Self Care ◽  
Private Good ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Inside Out

This article examines the branded persona of Ella Mills, founder of the multi-platform, multi-product and multi-million pound food brand Deliciously Ella. It begins from the premise that Mills represents a new kind of cultural intermediary: that of the wellness entrepreneur. Through a discourse analysis of Mills’ own media productions alongside news and magazine features about the entrepreneur, I consider how ‘healthy eating’ is being sold to young women as a means to realise physical and financial empowerment. Commercial entrepreneurship is made to function in tandem with health entrepreneurship, as Mills makes it her business to model a healthy lifestyle and enjoins others to follow this example. The article further examines how the Deliciously Ella narrative perpetuates already dominant understandings of health as a private good and personal responsibility through its emphasis on healing and recovery through food. Relating this analysis to recent debates about the shifting terrain of postfeminism in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, I argue that the spotlighting of Mills elevates self-care as a gendered imperative while obfuscating the classed and racialised privileges that attend this.

How Did Employment and Financial Strain Affect the Self-rated Health of Lone Mothers Around the Time of the Economic Crisis? A Cross-sectional Comparison of the United Kingdom and Sweden

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 773-798
Author(s):  
Nina Kirk ◽  
Sara Fritzell ◽  
Bo Burström
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Socioeconomic Factors ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Conclusive Evidence ◽  
Financial Strain ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Self Rated Health ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Lone Mothers ◽  
The Impact

Lone mothers face higher risk of poor self-rated health (SRH) than coupled mothers, partly explained by financial strain, non-employment, and welfare context. Comparing the United Kingdom and Sweden, we sought to determine how the economic crisis of 2008 affected the inequality in lone and coupled mothers SRH and what socioeconomic factors impacted this. Survey data was divided into periods corresponding to before, during, and after the economic crisis. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the impact of socioeconomic factors. Financial strain explained 70%–80% of the excess risk for poor health among Swedish lone mothers and 40% of those in the United Kingdom. Controlling for background and socioeconomic factors eliminated the health inequality among Swedish mothers. In the United Kingdom this inequality remained and may reflect the impact of social mechanisms such as stigma. Converse to what was expected, we did not observe significant variation over time in factors affecting SRH, nor did we find conclusive evidence of the impact of the economic crisis on the SRH of lone mothers. Factors that may account for these counterintuitive results, including retrenchment of the Swedish welfare state, economic lag, and reduction in overall inequality in health, are discussed.

The Labour Supply of Lone Mothers in Denmark and the United Kingdom

1996 ◽  
pp. 331-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Smith ◽  
Ian Walker ◽  
Niels Westergård-Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Labour Supply ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Lone Mothers

Child Support Reform and the Labor Supply of Lone Mothers in the United Kingdom

1995 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Bingley ◽  
Gauthier Lanot ◽  
Elizabeth Symons ◽  
Ian Walker
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Labor Supply ◽  
Child Support ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Lone Mothers

scholarly journals Self-Responsibility and Activation for Lone Mothers in the United Kingdom

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Millar
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Main Section ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Lone Mothers ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
Families With Children

Lone mothers make up a quarter of all families with children in the United Kingdom and have been one of the key target groups for activation policies for the past two decades. In a relatively short period of time, the U.K. system has changed from treating lone mothers as carers to treating them as workers. Most lone mothers are now required to seek work, or to be in work, in order to be eligible for state support. These developments place self-responsibility at the center of welfare reform and paid work as the core of self-responsibility. The focus is very much on the individuals and their labor market obligations and downplays their social obligations, for example, to care for their children or other family members. The capacity to make choices about when and how much to engage in paid work is much reduced. This article explores what these developments have meant for lone mothers in the United Kingdom. The first main section outlines the key policy approaches and measures, highlighting the underpinning concepts of self-responsibility. The discussion also explores the experiences of lone mothers in relation to these policies, drawing on data from a long-term qualitative study. The second main section focuses on a new policy development—the introduction of Universal Credit—in which promoting an employment-based self-responsibility is unequivocally central to the policy aims and design.

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