How do single mothers fare in a policy context that seeks gender equality through focusing on two-parent families? The ability to combine paid work and family life gender-equally has been a longstanding policy aim in Sweden, which has sought to solve this problem by supporting dual-earner-dual-carer families. This study explores how low-resourced single mothers meet family needs in the Swedish context, using low-resourced coupled parents as a comparison group. Findings show that single mothers are set back both as a direct implication of the dual-earner-dual-carer model and in relative terms, through policies that either assume gender-equal parenting or that do not compensate for its absence. This leads to under-recognised financial, emotional, and practical vulnerabilities, particularly among single mothers experiencing a gendered lack of division of labour with their co-parent. Together, these insights further our understanding of how a stratified and incomplete gender revolution and policies designed to underpin it may disadvantage low-resourced single mothers.
Author: Lovisa Backman