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The main aim of this article is to consider the different representations of lone‐mother families in Japan and Britain and to compare and analyse some of the issues which lone‐mother families in the two countries face in the light of three considerations: social policy, specific forms of support networks and changing family structures in the wider context. The focus on these issues is helpful in understanding a significant difference in the relative percentages of lone‐parent family in Britain and Japan. The paper focuses on lone‐mothers rather than fathers, because mothers in both countries are in general poorer and facing more hardship than lone fathers.

This paper aims to explore how lone mothers define “good” mothering and outlines the extent to which feelings of pride and shame permeate their narratives.

The empirical data on which the paper is based is drawn from semi-structured interviews with 32 lone mothers from Northern Ireland. All the lone mothers resided in low-income households.

Lone mothers experienced shame on three levels: at the level of the individual whereby they internalised feelings of shame; at the level of the collective whereby they internalised how they perceived being shamed by others in their networks but also engaged in shaming and at the level of wider society whereby they recounted how they felt shamed by government agencies and the media.

While a number of researchers have explored how shame stems from poverty and from “deviant” identities such as lone motherhood, the focus on pride is less developed. The paper responds to this vacuum by exploring how pride may counterbalance shame's destructive and scarring tendencies.

Investigates the problems and pressures facing lone mothers in management and professional occupations. Qualitative data were gained from semi‐structured interviews with 20 lone mothers, and the sample also completed the Pressure Management Indicator questionnaire. The interviews revealed that the lone mothers experienced some of the problems and pressures previously reported by women in dual career couples, including difficulties with childcare, work overload and role conflict, but to a much greater degree. Finds also that the death of a partner, separation or divorce affects the career aspirations and career development of the women in the sample and that the lone mothers were less able to take advantage of job‐sharing and part‐time working because of greater financial pressures. The lone mothers reported higher levels of pressure from workload and the home/work balance than comparative normative groups. However, as stress moderating strategies they employed better use of problem‐focussed coping than other women and made more use of social support than other managers.

The purpose of this paper is to particularly focus on lone-mother families, comparing the childcare-related challenges experienced by working lone mothers and coupled mothers in three European countries in the context of a 24/7 economy and non-standard working hours (e.g. evening, night and weekend work).

This study utilises survey data from Finnish, Dutch and British working mothers (n=1,106) collected as part of the “Families 24/7” research project. Multivariate regression analysis is used to analyse the associations between childcare-related challenges, maternal non-standard working, lone motherhood and country of residence.

The results indicated similar results across the three countries by showing that working lone mothers experience childcare-related challenges more often compared with coupled mothers. Furthermore, an increase in maternal non-standard working associated positively with increased childcare-related challenges in both lone mother and coupled families but lone motherhood did not moderate this association. The findings suggest that, regardless of family form, families in all three countries struggle with childcare arrangements when the mother works during non-standard hours. This possibly relates to the inadequate provision of state-subsidised and flexible formal childcare during non-standard hours and to the country-specific maternal work hours cultures.

This study responds to the need for comparative research on the reconciliation of maternal non-standard working and childcare with self-collected data from three European welfare states. The importance of the study is further highlighted by the risks posed to the maintenance of maternal employment and family well-being when reconciliation of work and childcare is unsuccessful, especially in lone-mother families.

This paper aims to explore how neo‐liberalism shapes income support policy and lone mothers' experiences in Canada and the USA.

A critical comparative analysis is undertaken of how Canadian and US governments take up sociological concepts of risk, market citizenship, and individualization, whether explicitly or implicitly, in the design and administration of neo‐liberal income support policies directed at lone mothers. Specifically, the contradictory life circumstances that Canadian and American lone mothers experience when they access income supports that are designed ostensibly to construct/reconstruct them as citizens capable of risk taking in their search for employment and self‐sufficiency are compared.

The paper finds that the realities for poor lone mothers are remarkably similar in the two countries and therefore argue that income support policies, particularly welfare‐to‐work initiatives, underpinned by neo‐liberal tenets, can act in a counter‐intuitive manner exposing lone mothers to greater rather than lesser economic and social insecurity/inequality, and constructing them as risk aversive and dependent.

The economic and social implications/contradictions of neo‐liberal restructuring of income support policies for lone mothers is revealed.

This paper contributes to broader scholarship on the gendered dimensions of neo‐liberal restructuring of welfare states in late modernity.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate Finnish working mothers’ experiences of the effects of non-standard working schedules (NSWS) on family time in two family forms, coupled and lone-parent families. Furthermore the aim is to find out what meanings mothers with NSWS attached to family time paying particular attention to the circumstances in which mothers experienced NSWS positively.

Thematic analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews was used to investigate mothers’ experiences of the effects of NSWS on family time.

The key factor generating positive experiences was the ability to maintain regularity and togetherness, which was enhanced by specific features of work, such as autonomy and regularity, and successful child care arrangements. Also important were the values mothers associated with family time. The results highlighted the more problematic situation of lone-parent families.

The main limitation of this study was the small sample size.

The findings show how the parents of small children benefit from the regularity and flexibility in their working hours. Owing to irregular and varying working times, flexible around-the-clock childcare is needed. In Finland, an important question is how to organize the care of small school-aged children. Lone mothers, especially, may need services to help with domestic chores and childcare.

A non-resident parent can also be an important source of childcare. Therefore policymakers should take into account family type, including consideration of the rights to childcare of non-resident parents.

This study adds to the literature by explaining more in depth, through the richness of qualitative data, the circumstances in which mothers experience NSWS positively.

Food insecurity (FI) is an important social determinant of health and is linked with higher health care costs. There is a high prevalence of FI among recent migrant households in Canada. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the prevalence of FI in Sub-Saharan African and Caribbean migrants in Ottawa, and to explore determinants of FI in that population.

A cross-sectional study was conducted among 190 mothers born in Sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean living in Ottawa and having a child between 6 and 12 years old. Health Canada’s Household Food Security Survey Module was used to evaluate participants’ food security in the past 12 months. χ² tests and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to measure determinants of FI (n=182).

A very high rate of FI (45.1 percent) was found among participants. When numerous determinants of FI were included in a multivariate model, household FI was associated with Caribbean origin, low education attainment, lone motherhood, living in Canada for five years or less and reliance on social assistance.

These findings highlight the need for FI to be explicitly addressed in migrant integration strategies in order to improve their financial power to purchase sufficient, nutritious and culturally acceptable foods. Enhancing migrants’ access to affordable child care and well-paid jobs, improving social assistance programs and providing more affordable subsidized housing programs could be beneficial.

Gender analysis of the narratives of low-income divorcées in big cities of Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir shows that their lives are under patriarchal domination. Women are subjected to all kinds of violence in their marriage and escape it by getting a divorce. Their lives are vulnerable as the increasing numbers of lone mothers are neither morally nor socially accepted in Turkish society. The patriarchal family ideal exacerbates the situation of lone mothers who become stigmatized as divorcées. Divorce is considered a ‘shame’ for women, and the ideology of family is used as a political tool where persistent conservative bias ignores wife battering, rape and other types of abuse in society.

Lone mothers commonly face social stigma alongside practical challenges in fulfilling both principal breadwinner and primary carer roles. This chapter draws on findings from qualitative research involving a sample of lone mothers in the north of England to discuss how they negotiate competing employment and parenting demands within a socio-political context characterized by “worker citizenship”. This model positions them firmly as workers while increased benefits conditionality is reinforced by media stereotypes that conflate lone motherhood with welfare dependency.

A comparative research design was developed to explore experiences of mothers in two nearby locations with contrasting socio-economic profiles using a Bourdieusian approach to class analysis. Factors affecting lone mothers’ subjective perceptions of a historically de-legitimated identity were investigated during semi-structured interviews with women in diverse situations.

The interviews revealed that participants across the sample viewed being in paid employment as the most significant factor in mitigating stigma. They emphasized their work orientation and saw this as an aspect of responsible parenting. Most mothers in the more affluent location used the cultural capital of educational qualifications to secure work that could be balanced with parenting. In contrast, most mothers in the deprived location expressed frustration at being unable to access jobs that are compatible with childcare and consequently felt stigmatized for claiming benefits.

The chapter is of value in illustrating the significance of avoiding stigma as a consideration in lone mothers’ deliberations on work/family interface. It also highlights the impact of class and location on lone mothers’ ability to balance employment with childcare.

The aim of this paper is to study employment effects of workfare and training programs for lone mothers receiving means‐tested benefits in Germany.

The empirical analyses are based on a large‐scale administrative data set covering the entire population of unemployed means‐tested benefit recipients. A timing‐of‐events approach is used to control for possible selectivity in program entries.

Findings are that lone mothers particularly profit from participating in vocational training programs. It seems they can benefit from updating their job skills after having interrupted their employment for childcare. By contrast, workfare does not seem to be beneficial for those with young children. Workfare is especially intended to enhance participants' motivation to increase their job search efforts. The main reason lone mothers of young children have not been employed is however likely to be lack of childcare, rather than lack of motivation.

Lone mothers of young children are perhaps not an adequate focus group for workfare, and should be assigned there less often, and instead more frequently to skill training programs.

As of yet, very little research has investigated effects of training and workfare programs specifically for lone mothers in Germany. The findings from the present study can contribute to understanding whether lone mothers, who are strongly targeted by these programs despite facing employment obstacles on account of low levels of childcare provision, can actually profit from program participations.