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Introduction

Single Motherhood is a widely stigmatized topic and family structure in society, even though 1 in 5 mothers in the United States are single moms. It does not fit into the perfect ideal of a family of a mom and a dad, and that does not sit well with some people. Not only do single mothers have to deal with stigma, they also face the struggles of employment discrimination. There are workplaces that will not hire a person if they know they are a single parent, but also they are their child’s only caregiver so they need a flexible schedule (and that is not always the case). Additionally, there are stereotypes that people associate and apply to who they envision single moms to be. People assume single mothers to be poor and or black, and while that is not wrong, it can easily turn racist and harmful. It is important to consider why this is the case, and how one’s environment, community, and oppression influence these outcomes.

So many single mothers struggle with poverty in this country and others because it is extremely difficult to raise a kid(s) on your own with only one income–even if you can supplement it with another job. The lack of additional support, daycare-wise and especially financially, is incredibly difficult and draining but they have no choice but to keep on keeping on. Compared to other developed western countries, single mothers in the United States struggle the most, despite having the highest employment rates. In the United States, the average income of single mothers is $40,000. Considering how expensive everything has become and depending on how many kids one has, it is quite easy to see how this puts these women at a financial disadvantage.

I chose to focus this project on Single Motherhood and Poverty because it is something personal to me. I grew up with a single mother most of my life, and it has had a profound impact on me. And while growing up I knew that it was difficult to be a single mom, as I get older I realize more and more the complexities and difficulties she–and many other mothers like her–go through. There were several aspects that I looked into for this project to get a well-rounded understanding. The research questions I inquired were: are there similar policies or cultural practices across nations with high rates of single moms in poverty, and vice versa? What role does race play in being a single mom? How do stigma and stereotypes of single mothers affect how they raise their kids, but also how does it impact the children of single mothers? What is the impact of a single mom’s socioeconomic status (SES) on bringing up their kids?

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Glossary

Single Mother: A woman who is raising a child(ren) without a partner. This can include women who are divorced, widowed, separated or have never been married.

Poverty: People or communities that don't have the financial resources or other essentials to meet their basic needs. This can include a lack of access to housing, clean water, healthy food, and medical attention. Poverty is influenced by a multitude of factors including race, income, sexuality, geographical location, and access to resources. 

Disparity: An inconsistent and unfair level of treatment or outcome.

Family Structure: The composition make-up of a family: the parents, children, and any other person living in the home. The relationship between the people in the family is also important.

Inequality: The unequal distribution of power and resources among a group of people. Some people are given more opportunities than others based on certain qualifying factors.

Luxembourg Income Study: An organization based in Luxembourg that collects data sets regarding wealth, income, employment, and demographics across many countries. This resource is often used for cross-national comparative studies. 

Logistic Regression Analysis: A statistical model used to predict the probability of an outcome occurring. Additionally is utilized to examine the relationship between a dependent and independent variable

Grounded Theory: A research method that is used to analyze data to find emerging themes. Under this theory, data is analyzed and collected simultaneously (Thornberg and Charmaz 2013). 

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"The loves of my life are my children and my mother. I don't feel as if I need a man." -- Diane Keaton

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Single Moms have to juggle multiple responsibilities at once by themselves

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Moving “Up and Out” Together: Exploring the Mother-Child Bond in Low-Income Single-Mother-Headed Families

“Moving “Up and Out” Together: Exploring the Mother-Child Bond in Low-Income Single-mother-Headed Families” analyzes the role of a mother and their bond with their child in their journey to economic stability together. There are several negative notions regarding single mothers in the common discourse of it. Poor single moms are seen as bad mothers, and women should wait to have kids until they no longer live in poverty. Freeman publishes this study which provides an alternate perspective to these stereotypes through its findings. 

Freeman wants to learn about how single mother’s decisions and actions as low-income parents are shaped by their children, but also, how these single mothers interviewed view how their kids have influenced them. Children are typically seen as a burden, and Freeman’s research takes into consideration this belief and seeks to understand to what extent single mother’s believe this (if they even do). 

The author and research team utilize qualitative methods for this study. Over a 3-year time frame from 2009 to 2012, they held 66 interviews with 37 single moms that were a part of the Anti-Poverty Program in Boston Massachusetts. In addition to the in-depth interviews, they took advantage of ethnography by observing informal discussions of women as a part of this program, as well as group meetings where all of the participants could talk with one another about their experiences and progress toward their goals–among many topics. The participant sample was quite diverse. Of all of the interviewees, 13 were White, 8 were Latino, 1 was Asian, and 15 were Black. The research team approached the study examining the data through a Grounded Theory and Feminist Inquiry Lens.

Freeman finds that these single kids are their motivation for pursuing their goals and bettering themselves and their families. Many realize that they are the main and one of the few role models their kids have, and they want to be a good example for them. “Although interviewees mentioned typical difficulties with child care and parenting, at the same time they recognized their children as the most important element of the lives and located parenting at the center of the meaning-making�� (Freeman 2016). The parents demonstrate this through a variety of ways in the course of this 3-year study. In traditional two-parent households, the pronouns “we” and “us” usually refer to the parents and or include the partner, but when the participants used this language, they meant them and their kids–not a partner. Most of the mothers did not see marriage as an opportunity or a way to improve their family. Lastly, Freeman found that these single mothers always included their children in their goals and efforts to escape poverty. Plenty of the participants saw higher education as a way out of poverty. They made sure that they helped their kids with their homework, and seeing them in school motivated some of these women to go to school themselves. It is difficult for single mothers to balance everything on their own, from their work to anything related to their kids, but the study shows that their kids are always their number #1 priority. 

Freeman, Amanda L. 2016. “Moving “Up and Out” Together: Exploring the Mother-Child Bond in Low-Income Single-Mother-Headed Families” Journal of Marriage and Family 79(3):675-689.

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An insightful video of a single mother trying to stay afloat.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/opinion/sunday/single-mothers-poverty.html

Reducing single motherhood would not reduce poverty in the US

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“I don’t have much of a choice”: Low-income single mothers’ COVID-19 school and care decisions.

Radey Melissa, Lisa Langenderfer-Magruder, and Joedrecka Brown Speights in “I don’t have much of a choice”: Low-income single mothers’ COVID-19 school and care decisions studied the factors that influenced single moms in Northern Florida whether they would send their children back to school in person. Radey, Langenderfer, and Brown look into how a mom’s preference and constraints play a role in her decision-making regarding their child’s care and schooling in regard to COVID-19. In the study, they also take into account the demographics of the mother (race, employment, etc) while analyzing.

These authors wanted to explore how and why mothers did what they did with their children’s education based on potentially scarce resources. COVID-19 negatively impacted everybody, and single moms specifically were exacerbated by time for themselves, and the need to take care of their families. The goal of this study was to learn why single moms made the decisions they did during the pandemic, and how one’s socioeconomic status further affected their decision-making. Throughout the article, a “lack of choice” was brought up several times to describe these women’s situations, and this is pertinent to the process and findings of the study as demonstrated here “Mothers feeling forced to send their children to outside care in order to pay their bills when they felt uncomfortable is also concerning” (Radey et al. 2021).

The authors took a qualitative approach to the study with the use of semi-structured interviews. Given the eligibility requirements, 272 women were able to be potentially interviewed. But after a screening process–so that they may have a diversity among the sample–34 single moms were interviewed. These women were compensated $40 for the first interview and $60 for the second one. Following the transcription of the interviews, the authors used Braun and Clarke’s six-phase thematic analysis to identify and analyze patterns and emerging themes in the data. This model involves extensive coding, revision of codes, finding common themes, and then repeating the process with fresh eyes to ensure there were no oversights and to provide a new understanding of the data. 

Although mothers may have had varying reasons for their choices, most of them made it clear they made their decisions because of their lack of choice and ability. Outside of these emerging themes from their coding, they found that there was an increased rate of distrust in the government regarding COVID-19, and in turn, in Black women. This stems from structural racism in the medical field against Black folks.

Radey, Melissa. Langenderfer-Magruder. Lisa, Brown S. Joedrecka. 2021. “I don’t have much of a choice”: Low-income single mothers’ COVID-19 school and care decisions.” Family Relations, 70(5), 1312-1326.

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Follows the story of a young girl of a single mom and two of her friends as they make their own memories living in a motel.

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“Single Motherhood, Employment, or Social Assistance: Why Are U.S. Women Poorer Than Women in Other Affluent Nations?”

Single Motherhood, Employment, or Social Assistance: Why are U.S. Women Poorer Than Women in Other Affluent Nations? by Karen Christopher analyzes potential reasons why, amongst Western Countries, single mothers in the US struggle the most with poverty. Dr. Christopher identifies that three factors affect a woman’s economic status, they are family, market, and state. In this study, Dr Christopher compares these factors among select Western Countries by looking at their systems of state support and social transfer and collecting data. 

Dr. Christopher seeks to find out to what extent single motherhood impacts the high poverty rate of women in the United States compared to other Western Nations, as well as, how can social assistance programs reduce said high rates of poverty. She uses previous knowledge about this topic of programs/systems in other nations and lays a foundation for comparing the data she finds from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) to explain why poverty rates are the way they are.

The author uses Quantitative methods for her study including a Logistic Regression Decomposition Analysis (LRDA), in conjunction with, employment and poverty rates based off of one's market income. LRDA is used to determine how certain factors like “family status, market income, and social assistance affect poverty”(Christopher, 2002). In this comparative analysis, she studies Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Dr. Karen Christopher retrieved data in survey form from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) from 1994-1995. 

This study discusses many findings, of most importance, is that even with a lower rate of single motherhood, the poverty rates of women would not decline that much. Despite high poverty rates, the US has the highest rates of full-time employment among these countries. The author concluded that “Instead of focusing on single motherhood, efforts to reduce U.S. women’s poverty should confront gender inequalities in the U.S.”(Christopher 2002). Women tend to work “lower-paying” jobs than men–ones that are not as valued–but also are not compensated at the same rights as men in their same position. Additionally, Dr. Christopher finds that Sweden and Finland are the most effective countries, in this study, at reducing the rates of poverty (by 80%) of single mothers. She concludes that it is largely due to their tax and social transfer systems.

Christopher Karen. 2002. “Single Motherhood, Employment, or Social Assistance: Why Are U.S. Women Poorer Than Women in Other Affluent Nations?”. Journal of Poverty, 6(2): 61-80.

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Elena's father does not show up for her Quince, so her mom fills in and supports her--like always.

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A personal critique of the film Save the Last Dance. References to the reinforcement of racial stereotypes in many ways through colorblind language, in this case, in Chenille's portrayal (a Black teen single mother).

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“Poverty at a Racial Crossroads: Poverty Among Multiracial Children of Single Mothers"

Brattner and Damaske conducted this research project in hopes of bridging the gap on the impacts of being a multiracial child to a single mother. Much research has been directed on monoracial children–fully white, Hispanic, black, or more–of single moms, and the outcomes of their lives and any existing disparities between races. The authors offer four predictions on what they believe the data will reveal. Brattner and Damaske go into depth about how multiracial children’s level of poverty differs (greatly or not) from their perspective races. Additionally, they explore the disparities between the levels of poverty among monoracial kids of color and white monoracial kids, and where multiracial kids fell along that line.

The study retrieved their data from the 2006-2008 American Community Survey 3-Year Estimate. They combed through it to find applicable cases to their study, and came out with a sample of 5600 individuals who identified themselves on forms as “two or more races”. While analyzing the levels of poverty among monoracial (white and people of color) children and multiracial children, they also adjusted to ensure that other independent variables including acculturation, socioeconomic status, geography, and demographic characteristics were included. A Logistic Regression model was used to predict the likelihood of child poverty occurring and also focused on whether independent variables can reduce the risk of poverty among different populations of children. 

The study brought about many findings. One of them being that 44% of multiracial kids to single moms lived in poverty. They also found that multiracial children were more likely to have a single mother that used to be married, in a serious relationship, or to have a same sex relationship compared to children from the full sample. Another interesting result was that children who are white and native with a white mom had lower rates of poverty compared to those fully native or with an indigenous mom. On the other hand, children with a white mother that are also latino tend to have higher rates of poverty compared to other mixed kids with white moms. 

Overall, the study shows that multiracial children’s risk of poverty tends to fall between their two respective identified races especially if they are part white. According to the study “having a white mother for a multiracial child appears to coincide with certain privileges that are not available to a child with a non-White mother, even if both children share a racial background” (Brattner et al. 2013). This signifies that has an important role in the risk of poverty. Though an insightful study, there are limitations. First, the sample mostly includes multiracial children who are part white, and second, it does not analyze how smaller-level factors like neighborhood conditions can change one's risk of poverty.

Brattner, Jennifer L., Sarah Damaske. 2013. “Poverty at a Racial Crossroads: Poverty Among Multiracial Children of Single Mothers” Journal of Marriage and Family 75(2): 486-502

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Many single mothers experience guilt and fear that their family structure will negatively impact them.

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Nani is learning and trying to be a parent to Lilo all on her own while juggling work and managing the home.

Nani lost her job, forcing her to try and find a new one within a small time frame.