Understanding Single Mothers

Albert Kim Professor Hester Eisenstein
Soc. 245: Women and work
Understanding the Burdens of Single Mothers When the topic of welfare programs and government assistance comes up, the common conservative thinking of pulling oneself by the bootstrap has been a common theme for those opposed to the program and even some in the general public. There has been bias coverage in the media regarding those on welfare as being exaggerations of overweight individuals doing nothing but staying home and watching television. Many individuals who work and are taxed may also go as far as to say that individuals in the welfare programs are leeches of society. The
reality is that the majority of welfare recipients are young single mothers. Single mothers do not arbitrarily decide to rely on welfare and government assistance. They rather end up relying on welfare because of many complex underlying reasons that force them in such destitution. There is another common misconception among the upper and middle class that single mothers relying on welfare and government assistance do not suffer much of the stresses as they do, but more often the opposite is true to a greater extent. Single mothers do suffer many consequences for not being able to find a sustainable job and not being married. All women face the same social and economic rigidity due to the ingrained biases of our society, but single mothers face more criticism for usually having to end up relying heavily on welfare and government assistance. The thought of single mothers simply relaxing at home playing with their children and watching television all day misconstrues the reality that they actually face much struggles daily. Understanding comprehensively as to why single mothers choose not to marry, why depression is widespread amongst themselves, what prevents them from getting jobs, what painstaking efforts single mothers both on and off welfare put into supporting their household, and what effects that they have on their little children will truly enlighten many of those ignorant to the single mothers’ plights. Single mothers struggle with many social conflicts and psychological problems for profound reasons that prevent them from achieving self-sufficiency and a good relationship. There is much misinformation about a single mother’s willingness to work. Many individuals assume that poor single mothers choose to voluntarily not work purely for the reason of laziness or lack of motivation. This myth may stem from the unintentional dissemination of hyperbole or even misinformation through the media such as in the movie “Precious”. In the movie, during one of the most notable and dramatic quotable scenes, the protagonist’s mother who watches television all day tells the protagonist that basically education will not help much and to take her butt down to the welfare office. Other highly publicized reports, such as the single mother who recently won the lottery and was still receiving unemployment benefits to the dismay of much of the taxpayers in her state, only represent a minority among working mothers and reinforce the negative stereotypes of the single mother receiving welfare and government assistance. But only two decades ago “federal welfare reform legislation replaced the entitlement program Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)” (pg. 728, Scott, London, Edin) which essentially shifts welfare and government assistance of income to include working restrictions and limitations in the extent of time to which they will remain valid. In the face of this change, women remain still at a disadvantage because they will still only have access to jobs without benefits, which will not help them to live without substantial support from outside resources or advance their position financially. Far from the assumption that single mothers laze around and therefore must end up feeling devastated by this change, many women felt a necessity about not having to rely on welfare and government assistance. Single mothers were neither enraged nor anxious, but rather calm and accepting about the whole situation. For instance, Marcia, an African American woman from Philadelphia said “I hope to be off it myself. You just have to go out and do what you got to do until you get what you need”. (p. 371, Scott, London, Edin) Other mothers even felt positive about the change both for themselves and for their children. Flossie views the positive in the change by saying “I think I’ll be better off…you’re a role model for your children. I think your children should see you doing something besides sitting home”. (p. 731, Scott, London, Edin) Many of these women feel positive or accepting about the changes to the welfare system rather than negative showing that single mothers are not in fact lazy individuals unwilling to go to work to support her household. So the inherent problem that many opponents of welfare system may have been critical about may have been the lenient structure of the welfare system rather than the motivational drives of the single mother themselves. The criticism of clumping all single mothers on welfare as lazy and unmotivated in front of examples such as Marcia and Flossie becomes unjustifiable. To truly understand the dilemma single mothers face in terms of finances and work, one must not look at the external willingness of single mothers to take up jobs but rather the adversities they face in search of employment and while they maintain employment. Single mothers face insurmountable obstacles that prevent their employment within a steady job. These obstacles include not having the right qualifications in the eyes of the employers, having access to only financially and temporally unstable and unreasonable working conditions, and the incompatibility between home and work responsibilities. Single mothers are often young females, which works against them, who do not have adequate education or job training, which works even more against them. As a female with no adequate education, single mothers have a limited range of jobs they may work, where “cashier and food service were the most common jobs among the working women interviewed” (p. 530, Brooks and Buckner) in a certain study.
Single mothers often work in unstable part-time minimum wage service jobs because it is their only way to make a living.
The inability for single mothers to break through into a job with steady pay and hours is further demystified by the fact that during 1993 “40% of all working women had been employed in service occupations. In contrast, managerial and professional positions are held by 26.9 % of all women workers in the U.S.; only 3.2 % in a particular study”. (pg. 530, Brooks and Buckner) Far more women were at the time able to work in the service industry than at high level manager/professional position. Female parents as females are at a disadvantage because “wages of women between 30 and 64 years are less than that of men”. (pg. 526, Brooks, Buckner) Single mothers also carry the heavy burden of having to deal with domestic expenses such as child care and work related expenses such as transportation and clothing. The pay of jobs that single mothers find is so low and the expenses are so high that working seems to be less cost effective the option of just receiving welfare or government assistance. This conflict is even more reinforced by the study in Chicago by Edin and Jencks where “ woman working 35 hours a week for 47 weeks a year at the minimum wage of $4.50/hour will not earn more than $7,403 prior to taxes. Yearly work expenses are estimated at $2,800… a minimum-wage job will net $1,865 less than the $6,468 mother with two children receives in AFDC benefits in
Massachusetts”. (p. 526-527, Brooks, Buckner) The small difference between the amount received from low-income jobs and the amount receivable from welfare, coupled with the working mother’s inability to continue to be employed in a steady decent paying job makes receiving welfare more appealing to single mothers. Single mothers have been forced into an unfortunate situation where the only rational choice is to accept welfare money. A major reason why single mothers find difficulty in working is that they need good, quality resources to take care of their children because often times child care is the most expensive expense in a single mother’s mind. The need for child care for single mothers to become more self-sufficient and able to work is so important that in 1990, welfare recipients funded child-care sources but “demand far exceeds the supply. Waiting lists exist in a majority of states; for example, in Texas an estimated 40,000 children are waiting for child-care subsidies”. (pg. 534, Brooks, Buckner) An example of how child care is unfortunately a burden for working single mother comes from the experience of a television actress of the show, Mad Men. In an article the actress of television show explains the toughness of being a single mother with a very busy schedule. But she ends up explaining that her workplace and co-workers were really accommodating to her child and that her child stayed in another room with an assistant taking care of the child. The struggles of a rich actress being a single mother at her workplace shows only a glimpse of what a single working mother with low finances of our society must feel. Single mothers struggling financially work in service jobs such as waitressing or reception work, where child care may not be as accommodating as the workplace for the Mad Men actress. The decisions and mind process of a single mother pondering whether to rely on welfare and government assistance or work a low-wage job is complex.
Many individuals, who are opponents of welfare or are ignorant of the complex problems that single mothers face, end up assuming that laziness comes into play. These individuals assume that single mothers apply for welfare and government assistance whenever they feel like they want to or a slight financial problem occurs. Single mothers often make decisions that are vital to their own household’s economic survival in society. Single mothers apply different economic survival strategies to their different economic situations such as if they were on welfare and government assistance or working a job. In light of the lifetime limit of 5 years on government assistance where “mothers who fail to sustain their families with their wages will, after a lifetime limit of five years, have no government safety net to fall on”, (p. 253, Edin, Lein) many single mothers fear most, the lack of money in the family during this transition. On paper, single mothers technically should not be able to support a household through the income from welfare income nor through the low-wage incomes. But somehow, single mothers who relied on welfare and government assistance were able to survive and pay bills to a certain extent. There are three categories of work that many single mother welfare recipients do, reported work, unreported work, and
underground work. Reported work “refers to work in the formal sector that recipients report to their caseworkers” (p. 258, Edin, Lein), unreported work “refers to either formal sector work that is not reported or to cash work in the informal sector” (p. 258, Edin, Lein), and underground work refers to work to sell “sex, drugs, or stolen goods to generate extra money”. (p. 258, Edin, Lein) The main reason as to how the family of welfare recipients were able to survive is that welfare recipients devoted much time and effort into making secondary sources of income, such as through unreported work and underground work, other than their welfare income and minimal reported work. For example, in one study, “2 and 9% of welfare recipients worked at jobs and reported their earnings” (p. 258, Edin, Lein), whereas “between 32% and 52% worked in unreported work” (p. 258, Edin, Lein), “between 2 and 19% worked in underground work” (p. 258, Edin, Lein), “25-44% received cash assistance from a community group and local charity” (p. 258, Edin, Lein) and, 69-91% used network-based strategies”. (p. 258, Edin, Lein) The welfare recipients work informal side jobs and they actively go out to get money from friends within his or her network, community groups, and local charities. To bypass the fact that caseworkers may take away their welfare incomes if they know that they are receiving extra income, welfare recipients do not report these incomes to their caseworkers or document them to the government. On the other hand, single mothers who work have more difficulties because although they have the ability to make more money, they are unable to access benefits of the government healthcare assistance, Medicaid, and still have many work related expenses. Work related expenses include such things as transportation (bus fares, taxis) and clothing (uniforms). In effect the benefits of higher income are canceled by the higher expenses, where in one study, “The welfare recipients had an average budget shortfall of $311 per month as compared to $411 for working mothers”. (p.257-259, Edin, Lein) Also the fact of the matter is that these single working mothers work low-wage jobs with erratic work schedules and long hours. As a result many single working mothers do not have the same luxury of time and are unable to ask for aid from the local community and charity groups. Because single working mothers are unable to gain money from side incomes and do not have enough money from their own low-wage income, they are often driven to get help and money from their own personal network (friends, family, or coworkers). This all contradicts any assumption that single mothers do not try their best to work whether they hold low-wage jobs or are on welfare. The system as a whole prevents single mothers in the majority of the time to hold a job that allows them to be self-sufficient and able to take care of their household. In addition to single mother completing long, erratic, and arduous hours at work, they must also go through the trouble of asking friends and family for money; though these requests seem easy, they are harder than expected. On the other hand women on welfare, rather than lazing around watching television, they actually perform unreported and underground work in order to support their family. Overall both types of single mothers are trapped in a vicious cycle where they have to either, rely on welfare and still perform many other side works to gain more income, or they have to rely on unsteady low-paying jobs with high expenses. A large question among many individuals’ minds may be since poor single mothers must struggle to make a living as the only provider of the household, can marriage possibly solve their problems? The statistics contradict such assumptions because, “today, poor men and women are only about half as likely to be married as those with incomes at three or more times the poverty level”. (pg. 118, Edin, Reed) Many federal and state policymakers apparently believe that marriage among unmarried couples with children result in positive outcomes. But further observance shows implicit reasons as to why single mothers remain hesitant on the pursuit of marriage. Among the many reasons, there are many social reasons for avoiding marriage such as issues with marital aspirations and expectations, ideas of childbearing, financial ideals for marriage, relationship quality among partners, and general dislike of divorce. Many individuals including those who are economically disadvantaged hold high marital aspirations. The meaning of marriage rose to highly valued symbol of relationship to the point where “both poor and more advantaged Americans now have strikingly similar expectations regarding a marriage partner and an ideal marital relationship”. (p. 121, Edin, Reed) The more advantaged Americans meet the standards economically and socially, where they have fewer problems in their relationship, in order to pursue a marriage. On the other hand, poor single working mothers feel that they fall short from the economic ideals and relationship ideals in order to pursue a marriage, because they are poor and more often encounter more relationship problems. As a result of this exultation of marriage as symbolically sacred, many single women hold views of the annulment of marriage or divorce as a highly repulsive act. In fact, in a study, “53% of the unmarried TLC3 couples, one or both partners say their fear of divorce is part of what is keeping them from getting married”. (p. 125, Edin, Reed) Marriage is so important to many of these single mothers that “at the heart of marital hesitancy is a deep respect for the institution of marriage”. (p. 125, Edin, Reed) Single mothers also view no strong association between marriage and child bearing. For instance in interviews with single mothers in a study about marriage, “the subject of children almost never came up, except for frequent assertion that merely having a child together is not a sufficient reason to marry”. (p. 121, Edin, Reed) Working women feel that just because two couples share a child together does not warrant urgency or a conscious need to marry the child’s father just because they share a child together. Relationship quality remains a big factor in single mothers’ hesitancy to marry. In fact, relationship quality is so important that, “in a simulation, they show that higher relationship quality would boost marriage rates more than would a significant increase in fathers’ earnings”. (p. 123, Edin, Reed) Single mothers often do not have the financial stability they want to along with their partners, and more often than not have distrust with their children’s fathers. Because of these reasons, single mothers often have relationship problems with their children’s father and as a result avoid marriage. Because of these reasons, policymakers should not focus on ways to directly encourage marriage among single mothers. Policy makers must concert their effort on issues such as erratic and low paying jobs, and promotion of asset development to ultimately increase marriage among single mothers. Single mothers undoubtedly face many hardships because of the lack of finances, a plethora of stressful events in their lives, and most likely a lack of social support from loved ones. The statistics that “using a large nationally representative sample of Canadians… single mothers were about twice as likely to have suffered an episode of major depression in the previous year than married mothers (15.4% vs. 6.8% respectively)” (p.442, Cairney, et. al.) shows that depression is a major hardship many single mothers face. Single mothers often feel depressed because of the financial problems in their life causing many of their negative and stressful problems in the present. But single mothers more likely faced childhood traumas which force them to feel even more depressed. Married mothers have access to friends and family within her own personal network and also to the friends and family of her husband. This large network of social support is a large advantage over single mothers, who most often have access to only her own personal social network. The lack of social support among single mothers to talk over their problems with or to ask for favors also explains why so many more single mothers suffer from depression then married mothers. Social stressors stemming, most likely, from a lack of social support seem to also be the source of psychological duress for single mothers, more so than financial stress. This is the case because “the introduction of income, in the form of income adequacy, had a more modest impact (reduced by 4%). Thus, unlike previous work, we find social stressors to have the most impact in terms of accounting for the relationship between lone-parent status and depression.” (p. 447, Cairney, et. al.) But what is the most disheartening about a single mother’s depressive symptoms is the effect of the depression on her children. This chain of effect comes about because according to one researcher, “higher levels [depressive symptoms] would be related directly to the quality of parenting and thereby, to children’s development”. (p. 1412, Brooks-Gunn, et. al.) Single mothers face great tribulations that many in the general population can only fathom. Critics of the welfare program end up criticizing the dependents of the program, the majority being single mothers, despite not truly understanding their plights, admirable persistence, and work ethic. Some individuals say that single mothers only bring trouble upon themselves by not being married, but there are deeper meanings for their actions and choices as to why they resist marriage. Furthermore single mothers suffer more depression from a lack of social support and personal internal conflicts which eventually affect child development. Rather than criticizing single mothers for their dependency on welfare and hesitancy to marry, they should be admired and helped by increasing job stability and social support for them.

Works Cited
Brooks, Margaret G., and John C. Buckner. "Work and Welfare: Job Histories, Barriers to Employment, and Predictors of Work among Low-income Single Mothers." American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 66.4 (1996): 526-37. Print.
Cairney, John, Michael Boyle, David R. Offord, and Yvonne Racine. "Stress, Social Support and Depression in Single and Married Mothers." Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 38.8 (2003): 442-49. Print.
Edin, Kathryn, and Joanna M. Reed. "Why Don 't They Just Get Married? Barriers to Marriage among the Disadvantaged." The Future of Children 15.2 (2005): 117-37. Print.
Edin, Kathryn, and Laura Lein. "Work, Welfare, and Single Mothers ' Economic Survival Strategies." American Sociological Review 62.2 (1997): 253-66. Print.
Jackson, Aurora P., Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Chien Huang, and Marc Glassman. "Single Mothers in Low-Wage Jobs: Financial Strain, Parenting, and Preschoolers ' Outcomes." Child Development 71.5 (2000): 1409-423. Print.
Scott, Ellen K., Andrew S. London, and Kathryn Edin. "Looking to the Future: Welfare-Reliant Women Talk About Their Job Aspirations in the Context of Welfare Reform." Journal of Social Issues 56.4 (2000): 727-46. Print.