Single-parent families and their high poverty rates remain a genuine concern in OECD countries. Much of the research has focused on “redistribution” through income taxes and transfers as an effective strategy to reduce poverty. We adopt this traditional approach, and then push forward a focus on “market” strategies that facilitate single parents’ labor market participation. Throughout this research brief, we define single-parent families as households in which a parent lives with one or more of her or his children, but without a partner. People other than the partner can live in the household too. We do not empirically differentiate between single mothers and single fathers, mainly because the number of single fathers is relatively small. In our data, 15% of all single parents (in our pooled data) were fathers1 , ranging from a low of 8% in Estonia, up to 22% in Norway and 35% in Hungary2 . It should be emphasised that single parenthood is very much a gendered phenomenon: the overrepresentation of single mothers (rather than fathers) means that women are disproportionally affected by the risk of single parenthood. Also, it means that the disadvantaged position of women in the labour market (e.g. in terms of the gender wage gap, of lower employment, and employment in lower paying jobs) influences and compounds the vulnerable position of singleparent families.