Single Parents Competing in a Dual-Earner Society: Social Policy to Level the Playing Field

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00027162221122686
• Published date: 01 July 2022
• Date: 01 July 2022
• Subject Matter: Childcare, Parental Leave, and Immigration Policies

114 ANNALS, AAPSS, 702, July 2022

DOI: 10.1177/00027162221122686

Single Parents

Competing in a

Dual-Earner

Society: Social

Policy to Level

the Playing

Field

By

RENSE NIEUWENHUIS

1122686ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYSINGLE PARENTS COMPETING IN A DUAL-EARNER SOCIETY

research-article2022

I examine the relative poverty risk among single-parent

households in countries that have a large share of

households with dual earners. Data from the

Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Database are used to

analyze eighteen OECD countries in the period 1984

to 2010. I find that single parents face higher relative

income poverty risks in countries with a large share of

dual-earner households and that this higher risk of

poverty is related to higher standards of living in those

countries: higher standards of living have raised poverty

thresholds, and single-parent incomes are less likely to

reach those higher poverty thresholds. I also find that

this overall pattern varied across institutional contexts:

a rise of dual-earner households puts single parents at

a disadvantage only in countries that have relatively low

public expenditures on childcare and relatively low

income transfer policies.

Keywords: single parents; poverty; dual earners; gen-

der revolution; ECEC; decommodifica-

tion; defamilization

Families in high-income countries have seen

significant changes in recent decades. Two of

the most important economic changes have been

the rise of women’s participation in the labor

force, which increased the share of households

with dual earners (Ferragina 2020; Goldin 2006),

and a rise in the diversity of family forms, includ-

ing single parenthood (Thomson 2014; Bernardi,

Mortelmans, and Larenza 2018). The increase in

women’s economic activity, often described as

part of the gender revolution, is generally associ-

ated with lower economic inequality, but it has

not been without certain economic trade-offs.

Rense Nieuwenhuis, an Associate Professor in sociology

at the Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI) at

Stockholm University, studies how gender inequality,

family diversity, and social policy affect poverty and

economic inequality. He published in journals such as

Social Forces, European Sociological Review, and

Journal of European Social Policy.

Correspondence: rense.nieuwenhuis@sofi.su.se