OFCE Report 2020
A first research was co-financed by the Department for Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (Service des droits des femmes et de l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes), OFCE report (in French) -> Etude sur la situation économique et sociale des parents isolés. Niveau de vie, marché du travail et politiques publiques
This report presents an analysis of the precarious factors that lone parents have to face because of their specific family configuration. These factors are apprehended from several angles: that of their living conditions (standard of living and housing, etc.), that of their individual characteristics (level of diploma, age, etc.) and that of their situation on the labour market (participation, unemployment, type of contract, working time, etc.). Some public policies, social and fiscal policies but also employment policies, are designed to support these families. However, the complexities if the tax-benefit system might lead to negative negative consequences on the economic situation of single parents, especially single mothers. The treatment of maintenance payments in the tax benefit system can be detrimental for their economic situtation.
-> “Réduire significativement le taux de pauvreté des familles monoparentales”, Billets de Blog OFCE, Hélène Périvier and Muriel Pucci, June 29 2021.
Finally, the general conditions of the labour market and the level of unemployment have a specific effect on single mothers, particularly because of the organisational constraints they face. We have shown that the level of unemployment affects the labour force participation of lone mothers relative to mothers in couples: in 2018, in localities where the unemployment rate for women was high, the participation rate of single mothers relative to those living in couples was, all other things being equal, lower. However, this was not the case in localities where the unemployment rate was low, as shown in the graph below :
New research project
Research team
Hélène Périvier, OFCE Sciences Po Paris
Muriel Pucci, Université Paris 1, OFCE Sciences Po Paris
Raul Sampognaro, OFCE Sciences Po Paris
Objective
This research extends part of the work carried out. The aim will be to analyse the specific situation of single mothers on the labour market. We want to extend this work by mobilizing more recent employment surveys, and refine our analysis.