Class Matters and the Lone Mother

Recently, I had the opportunity to have a discussion with low income “lone” mothers. I put lone in quotes to indicate the challenge in what sort of title to put before the word mother.

Traditionally, this group is referred to as “single” mothers. Single. With this an emphasis on the marital status of the woman, mother. Highlighting first that this figure is not married indicates her flaw, her defect. The connotation is that the default position for a woman who has had a child is to be in a legally, state sanctioned relationship with a man. This archaic, heteronormative distinction is used to imply that raising children without a (male) partner puts emotional (and more importantly at the structural level) financial strain on the mother. However, what this really does is create another category of woman identified people for Western societies to disparage and hate.

I typed “single mother” into Google and the first 4 of 6 images were of black women and children. Every picture featured a smiling woman figure with a child either hanging on her back or in a loving embrace. “Single father,” interestingly, produced identical results. If the mother figure is a trope of “white” selfless unwavering devotion and magical virginal perfection, the “single mother” is a poor, depressed hag, selfishly living off of welfare or child support, if she is acknowledged at all.

Here is the reality of lone motherhood in British Columbia, Canada.

In BC, 82% of lone-parent families are female-led, with median annual incomes that are just 69% of male lone-parent families. This translates into half of all single mothers in BC are poor or in poverty. These women did not all start out low income. Research from the US reveals that when heterosexual unions end, across class lines, earnings go up 20% for men but down 40 – 60% for women. This does not mean that these men were financially supporting these women in some 1950s version of domesticity. Rather, gender, race, and class inequality intersect with patriarchal dominance to move formerly middle class women into poverty and keep low income women poor after the partnership ends.

First there is the issue of the feminization of labor. There is a workplace trend, with the rise of global capitalism, towards the greater employment of women. This is because of the gendered nature of work. Service work, the caring fields, domestic work are all gendered feminine. Gendering certain work as “women’s work,” then justifies the low status and low wages that correspond with such labor. Lone mothers and women in poverty get funneled in to feminized jobs by the government in an effort to put them in any job. However, these are low paying, part time, precarious, and seasonal jobs. Additionally, there are unique impediments to work that single mothers face.

Access to childcare is a primary challenge. In British Columbia there is a serious absence of quality, affordable child care. Child care fees in BC are among the highest in the country. Across metro Vancouver, fees consume between 27% and 35% of women’s average annual income. The high cost of child care puts it out of reach for low-income families. There is also a lack of child care availability in BC with a licensed space for only 20% of children who require one.  There is also non-existent childcare for shift work. Mothers who do shift work and work nights (which is a vast majority of the low wage feminized work that women get) have to rely on family or friends to watch their children. This is not an option for new immigrant mothers or for the mothers who had to move away from their home to leave an abusive relationship.

The lack of affordable housing is another impediment faced by lone mothers. The high cost, and lack of, rental properties in city centers, means that lone mothers frequently must move out to the suburbs away from job opportunities and support services. Not only does this contribute to the isolation experienced by single mothers, but it creates another barrier to employment. Transportation then becomes an issue as low income, lone mothers must rely on an inadequate public transit system. A virtually impossible, if not expensive, time crunch ensues of getting one’s children to childcare or school, getting themselves to work, leaving work in time to pick up the children, or arranging for after school care, and then home to start the third shift. All of this means that financial security for lone mothers requires much more than simply, “getting a job.”

Finally, there is the issue of intimate partner violence. A very high percentage of lone mothers have experienced some form of abuse from their former partner. This overlays all of the previously mentioned obstacles and is a primary factor in moving or keeping women in poverty. The details of how domestic abuse impacts lone mothers will be discussed in my next post.