ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we examine the policy environment for lone mothers in respect of paid work, care and transitions between periods of paid work and care-giving, in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In the classification developed in Chapter Four (Table 4. 4), those countries compose the poor mothers category: the majority of lone mothers are undertaking care as opposed to paid work, and are highly vulnerable to poverty while doing so. The data presented in Chapter Four, however, also highlighted variations in respect of the patterning of activity status and poverty rates across the countries composing this group. Thus, while in each of these countries, lone mothers are predominantly full-time carers as opposed to being engaged in paid work, the percentage who are so ranges from 78 and 73 per cent respectively in Ireland and New Zealand, to 58 and 57 per cent respectively in the United Kingdom and Australia. Moreover, while undertaking full-time caring results in relatively high (by international standards) rates of poverty among lone mothers in all of these countries, the risk of poverty nevertheless varies between them: it is greatest in Australia (64 per cent), followed by the United Kingdom (47 per cent), and then Ireland (40 per cent). Finally, as the sub-classification identified in Chapter Four demonstrated, the implications for the risk of poverty of lone mothers' engagement in paid work varies across these countries: while in Ireland and the United Kingdom it implies a considerable reduction such that employed lone mothers are by international standards non-poor, employment leaves Australian and New Zealand lone mothers with a relatively high risk of poverty.
