lone parents

• lone parent statistics


  % of lone parent families tripled since 1971 with britain having one of the highest proportions in europe

  2014 - 1/4 families with dependant children were lone parent

  9/10 headed by women

  average age = 38 = reduces myth teenage pregnancy was cause of increase

  make up 22% of all families with children
• 4 key reasons for increase in lone parent families

  greater economic independence of women

  improved contraception, changing male attitudes and fewer shotgun weddings

  reproductive technology

  changing social attitudes
• new right and lone parents 


  blame generosity of welfare benefits

  MURRAY - benefits encourage women to have children they otherwise cant afford

  lone parent mothers have been portrayed by media and Tory politicians as promiscuous parasites, blamed for everything wrong in society

  lone parenthood is a major social problem = moral panics
• feminists and lone parents

  silva - media concerns about lone parents attempt to force women back into traditional roles of housewife and homemaker
• why are the majority of lone parents female

  belief women are more suited by nature to look after children

  divorce courts usually give custody to women

  men less willing to give up work for children

  women are more likely to be single by choice
• criticisms of new right perspective on lone parent families

  lack of affordable childcare prevents lone parents from working

  failures of fathers to pay maintenance
• greater economic independence of women and increasing lone parent families

  women have greater economic independence both through more job opportunities and support from welfare state

  this means marriage and support from a husband is less of an economic necessity compared to the past
• improved contraception, male attitudes and fewer shotgun weddings and increasing lone parent families

  wide availability and approval of safe and effective contraception, and easier access to safe and legal abortion, men may feel less responsibility to marry or cohabitate with women and support them should they become unintentionally pregnant, and women may feel less under pressure to marry or cohabit with the future father

  fewer shotgun weddings, where reluctant couples are forced into marriage because of a pregnancy
• reproductive technology and increasing lone parent families

  women can bear children without a male partner, via surrogate motherhood and fertility treatments like IVF
• changing social attitudes and increasing lone parent families

  less social stigma and disapproval attached to lone parenthood, women are therefore less afraid of the social consequences of becoming lone parents
• evaluation of lone parenthood myths

  never married lone mothers only account for just over half of lone parents with dependent children

  even among these women, vast majority cohabited with the father and have registered his name on the birth certificate

  problems allegedly created by absence of fathers questioned on grounds on whether fathers actually involve themselves in upbringing

  Home Office found no different in crime rates between children from lone parent and two parent families

  less than 2% of all lone parents are teenagers