ABSTRACT
The last decade has witnessed a steady increase in the number of children brought up in households headed by one parent. The vast majority (over 90 per cent) of these households are headed by women. These are households which are over-represented on all measures of deprivation. As Slipman states:
Poverty is the spectre that haunts the one parent family. Put simply it is women’s poverty tied to children’s poverty. Together they make a formidable trap from which it is difficult to escape; which cuts off all aspects of life’s opportunities . . . acute problems are experienced by the many lone parents who drop into poverty with a shocking rapidity upon relationship breakdown. They experience a spiral of poverty which removes their control over their lives and enforces a dependency upon state benefits and the welfare system, that determines both their future life chances and those of their children. It is the poverty trap that creates the problems of the one parent family.
