Poverty Reduction And Welfare Provision For Single Parents In Aotearoa/ New Zealand And The United States
...- A Comparative Analysis
Abstract
In 1999, UNICEF reported that countries which have the most generous welfare provision, have the lowest rates of child poverty and that children who live in sole parent families are more likely to live in poverty (Bradbury & Jantti, 1999). This paper will look at child poverty in New Zealand and the United States and at welfare provision for single parents. It will examine current global discourses around poverty reduction and whether this goal is likely to be achieved under these welfare programmes.
BACKGROUND – The Rise in Single Parents Since the 1960’s
After 1900, liberal economic governance and ‘industrialization’ in both the US and New Zealand eroded the extended family in favour of a male breadwinner, ‘nuclear’ family as a mobile, flexible, cost effective work unit (Hale, 1990). Following the civil rights movements of the 1960’s it also became increasingly unacceptable for male breadwinners to have sole access to the labour market or to dominate family units and women willingly and unwillingly joined the workforce. To achieve pay equity they needed to be equally mobile and flexible. Nuclear family units have deconstructed in a myriad of ways under increasingly malleable social and labour market conditions. Separation and divorce rates have risen as have out-of-wedlock births (Ellwood & Jencks, 2004). Consequently, increasing numbers of women raise children alone.
In 2004 there were 73 million children (under 18) in the US, a quarter of the total population (US Gov Forum. 2006) and approximately 1 million in New Zealand (Stats NZ. 2006). Single parent families made up 29 % of families with children under 18 in both countries. (Statistics NZ. 2001. Simmons and O‘Neill, 2001. P4)
Current demographic trends suggest that single parent families with children will increase to 36% of all families with...
View Full Essay
