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

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.

The Forms and Functions of Child Support Stigma

2020 ◽  
pp. 232949652096821
Author(s):  
Zoë Goodall ◽  
Kay Cook
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Single Mothers ◽  
News Media ◽  
Child Support ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
The Political ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social

The stigmatization of single mothers who receive child support proliferates in news media, policy, and popular culture. Drawing on critical stigma literature, we examined data from interviews conducted with child support recipients in Australia and the United Kingdom. Our analysis examined how women receiving child support experienced stigma, how stigma was applied to other women in similar situations, and the political implications of these framings. Our interview data suggested child support stigma can be grouped into three categories, where women were seen to contravene maternal norms, patriarchal norms, and/or familial norms. These norms sanctioned mothers’ use of, amount of, and reliance on child support, viewing it fundamentally as men’s money that women take, rather than the contribution of a nonresident parent to their children’s upbringing. The source of stigma may have been ex-partners, child support bureaucratic systems, or recipients themselves, but the social and political functions of child support stigma remained the same: it discouraged solidarity between recipients and encouraged policy reform that further disadvantaged them.

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
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