Single Parents Competing in a Dual-Earner Society: Social Policy to Level the Playing Field. (July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Nieuwenhuis, Rense
• Other Names: Gornick Janet C. guest-editor.; Maldonado Laurie C. guest-editor.; Sheely Amanda guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Volume 702:issue 1(2022)
• Page Start: 114
• Page End: 128
• Publication Date: 2022-07
• Subjects: single parents -- poverty -- dual earners -- gender revolution -- ECEC -- decommodification -- defamilization; Social sciences -- Periodicals; Social sciences -- United States -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- Periodicals; 300
• DOI: 10.1177/00027162221122686
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0002-7162

Abstract

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.