ABSTRACT
Family changes are perceived as essential elements of late modernity and Giddens
(1987) and Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (1994 and 2002) have brought ‘the family’
back into the centre of sociological concerns. This has coincided with a renaissance in
sociology itself (Smart and Neale 1999, 6). Although lone mothers are not a specific
subject they are part of wider diversities in family forms and gender relations that are
studied closely in order to re-conceptualize society (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1994
and 2002; Beck-Gernsheim 1994 and 2002; Hoffmann-Nowotny 1989).
