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Contribution to Book
Dual-Earner Family Policies at Work for Single-Parent Families
The Palgrave Handbook of Family Policy
  • Laurie C Maldonado, Molloy University
  • Rense Nieuwenhuis, Stockholm University
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
1-1-2020
Version
Publisher's PDF
Publisher's Statement
© The Author(s) 2020 R. Nieuwenhuis and W. Van Lancker (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Family Policy
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-54618-2_13
Abstract

Family dynamics are changing and single-parent families are becoming more common across countries. In their flagship report “Progress of the World’s Women, 2019–2020,” UN Women (2019) demonstrated that, contrary to popular belief, couples with children do not constitute a majority of all families, but rather there are many different types of families. Single parenthood is considered a “new social risk” in poverty and inequality (Bonoli, 2013). Therefore, policy makers and legislators have designed targeted policy specifically for single parents, such as targeted child benefits to single parents. In addition, legislation and social policy have been designed and implemented specifically for single parents, such as child support and family law such as child custody and shared residence. This study takes a different approach, based on the universalist argument that without adequate social protection that benefits all families, those families that are more vulnerable are often hit the hardest. We focus on family policies, and specifically we examine whether and to what extent single parents benefit from the same family policies that are available to all families with children.

Disciplines
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Citation Information
Laurie C Maldonado and Rense Nieuwenhuis. "Dual-Earner Family Policies at Work for Single-Parent Families" The Palgrave Handbook of Family Policy (2020)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/laurie-maldonado/28/