ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with examining the policy environment for lone mothers in respect of paid work, care and transitions between periods of paid work and care-giving, in the final category of the classification developed in Chapter Four (Table 4. 4). That category has been termed the non-poor workers group, and is composed of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Norway and Sweden. Each of those countries is distinguished from the other 16 included in this study by the relatively high proportion of lone mothers who are undertaking paid work, and the relatively low risk of poverty for lone mothers associated with being in employment. Thus, in this chapter, we will seek to establish whether policies around paid work, care-giving and transitions within the non-poor workers group are configured in such a way as to construct lone mothers as predominantly paid workers as opposed to full-time care-givers, and whether the quality of social rights attached to paid work is of such a standard as to protect the majority of lone mothers who engage in paid work from poverty.
