Journal earns grant to focus on global plight of single mothers

BY ELLEN CHANG
Rice News Staff

While single mothers in the United States have become more financially independent, they continue — along with their counterparts worldwide — to face various economic and social barriers while struggling to care for their children.

The economic issues faced by single mothers throughout the world will be examined by academics in a special issue of Feminist Economics.

The journal’s issue, ”Lone Mothers,” will highlight the importance of examining and exploring single motherhood in a wider context of social security and family and welfare policy. Funded by a grant of nearly $65,000 from the Ford Foundation, the issue will be published in 2004. The journal is currently accepting submissions of papers, short discussions and book reviews to explore the issues and develop possible solutions.

”One of the key questions of our era is how to raise children while earning a living,” said Diana Strassmann, editor of Feminist Economics and a senior research fellow of the Center for the Study of Cultures at Rice University. ”As family structures change, finding better social tools for addressing poverty among lone-mother families is a growing challenge for countries around the world.”

The journal will examine the historical, economic and political issues surrounding the growing number of women raising their children alone. Feminist economists have been at the forefront of research on the economic consequences of women’s economic dependence, labor markets, care work, family structure, welfare policies and gender-segregated labor markets, Strassmann said. The journal also will address issues affecting women, such as caregiving, income generation and dependence on men.

Exploring these topics will increase the level of scholarly and political attention to understanding the situation. It also will nurture a network of researchers, policy makers and activitists to encourage future initiatives.

Women raising children without any financial support from the fathers has become a growing worldwide phenomenon, Strassmann said. Without the support of an extended family, women who had relied on men often have few options to support their children.

As more women are raising children alone with either little or no financial support from the fathers, many families are living in poverty. The poverty rates remain high in both industrialized and developing nations, said Strassmann. Some government policies have sought to promote marriage as the best solution to poverty and single-mother families, she said.

”Although the problem is not new, it has become more acute in market-based societies because the male breadwinner model of marriage has influenced the form of welfare and social security systems,” she said.

With more women entering the workforce, their economic conditions have improved, and in some countries their wages have risen enough so that many women are self-sufficient and economically independent because of reforms in legislation.

While progress has been made in some countries, the lack of affordable child care remains a major problem for many single mothers, Strassmann said.

In order for countries to develop better policies addressing the needs of single mothers, it is essential for the countries to understand the complex nature of single-mother families and how the economic situations vary greatly from culture to culture, Strassmann said. They also must consider the role of political, legal and cultural factors in the creation and support of such families.

One critical issue is why men typically provide so much less child care than women, she said.

”Efforts to figure out how to adapt welfare and social security systems to the realities of changing family structures will require answers to this and other questions,” Strassmann said.

The journal’s special issue will delve into the conflicts and dilemmas that single mothers constantly face. It will be edited by three well-known economists: Randy Albelda, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts