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Welfare Benefits the Duration of Single Parenthood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

John Ermisch  and
Robert E. Wright
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Extract

The number of one parent families has risen by about 80 per cent since 1971, reaching just over a million in 1986. (Haskey 1989). In 1986, they made up 14 per cent of all families with dependent children, and the primary reason for this large increase is marital breakup: about 70 per cent of the increase is attributable to the growth in the number of divorced and separated mothers. At present, 90 per cent of single parents are women, and ¾ of mothers heading one parent families have previously been married.

Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 130 , November 1989 , pp. 85 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

(1)

NIESR and Birkbeck College respectively. We are grateful to the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Trust and the Economic and Social Research Council (programme grant on ‘Economic Inequality, Gender and Demographic Differentials’) for financial support for the research upon which this paper is based. They are not, however, responsible for the views presented in the paper.

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