Single motherhood has been socially constructed as a deviant identity category. Up against the master societal framework of hegemonic heterosexuality, single mothers, as a social group, have been systematically discriminated against and subjected to moral regulation. The single mother has consistently been depicted as either criminal or victim, and she has almost always been cast as an individual actor whose lot is explained in individualized, apolitical terms. The current rhetoric of choice feeds the idea that single mothers in need deserve their hardships because they have freely and singularly chosen their sexual and reproductive behaviors and circumstances. In light of the historically constructed identity position of the single mother, it is evident that a more sociologically sensitive analysis of single motherhood has been culturally suppressed. Feminism has long been adamant about the significance of the role that reproduction plays in gender inequality. Queer Theory, with its critique of the sexualization of social life, is amenable to such a perspective and is employed here to illuminate how familial, sexual, and/or reproductive realities rigidify into overarching identity categories that shape and restrict rights and freedoms. / N/A

Background: In Sri Lanka, motherhood within marriage is highly valued. Sex out of wedlock is socially unacceptable and can create serious public health problems such as illegal abortions, suicide and infanticide, and single motherhood as a result of premarital sex is considered shameful. The way unmarried women facing single motherhood reflect on and make use of their agency in their social environments characterised by limited social and financial support has consequences for the health and well-being of both themselves and their children. The aim of this study was to explore and describe how unmarried women facing single motherhood in Sri Lanka handle their situation. Methods: This qualitative study comprised semi-structured interviews with 28 unmarried pregnant women or single mothers. The data were analysed by qualitative content analysis and the results related to the conceptual framework of social navigation. Results: The women facing single motherhood expressed awareness of having trespassed norms of sexuality through self-blame, victimhood and obedience, and by considering or attempting suicide. They demonstrated willingness to take responsibility for becoming pregnant before marriage by giving the child up for adoption, bringing up the child themselves, claiming a father for their child, refraining from marriage in the future, permanently leave their home environment, and taking up employment. Throughout the interviews, the women expressed fear of shame, and striving for familial and societal acceptance and financial survival. Conclusions: A social environment highly condemning of unmarried motherhood hindered these women from making strategic choices on how to handle their situation. However, to achieve acceptance and survival, the women tactically navigated norms of femininity, strong family dependence, a limited work market, and different sources of support. Limited access to resources restricted the women's sexual and reproductive health and rights, including their ability to make acceptable and healthy choices for themselves and their children.

No description available.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the experiences of single mothers raising rebellious adolescent boys. A qualitative methodological design was followed. Thirteen single mothers were interviewed, as well as five clergies and six social workers. An in-depth qualitative analysis was undertaken, in order to investigate the subject of single mothers raising adolescent boys. The study results are presented in an integrated and descriptive tabula format. The participant’s stories were re-encountered through the researcher’s own frame of reference in which common themes of the single motherhood and adolescence were constructed. They were elaborated on and a comparative active analysis was undertaken to link them with the available literature. This information gained from the research could contribute to the existing body of knowledge; on the impact of the rebellious behaviour of the adolescent boys on the single mother, by offering a new perspective. The project was done within The Chief Albert Luthuli Municipality under the Gert Sibande District of Mpumalanga Province. It was found that most single mothers were suffering silently as there is no adequate support either from the community or the church. The study found that the behaviour of girls reflected better on their mothers compared to their counterparts who are boys. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Practical Theology / PhD / Unrestricted

No description available.

Cette thèse propose d’éclairer les parcours de femmes, mères et célibataires, qui n’existent pas au regard des statistiques officielles ou plutôt ne devraient pas exister selon les injonctions familiales normatives en Tunisie. Il s’agit d’identifier les différentes conduites individuelles et les stratégies mises en place par ces femmes face à une grossesse prénuptiale. Au-delà des apports de connaissances en socio-démographie sur une population souvent passée sous silence, cette thèse basée sur une analyse quantitative et qualitative se situe à la jonction des dimensions collectives, structurelles et individuelles. L’interprétation des matériaux récoltés portent à la fois sur les différents déterminants sociaux qui mènent ces femmes à la grossesse mais aussi analyse leurs conduites à partir de ces contraintes sans pour autant s’en contenter. Elle ouvre sur une réflexion plus large quant aux formes possibles de recompositions familiales, conjugales et sexuelles en Tunisie. / This Ph.D. research focuses on women who are both mothers and single in Tunisia. Not only is it interesting but also is it challenging to work with them for women bearing the double status of single motherhood are excluded from society. Indeed, whether in Official statistics or mainstream family models, these women are literally "inexistant". The aim here is to identify their individual behaviors and strategies facing premarital pregnancy. Beyond the socio-demographic inputs on a rejected population, this thesis involves questioning their subjective dimensions (feelings, thoughts). This work is based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis and is therefore situated at the junction of both structural and individual perspectives. Which social determinants led these women to pregnancy? How did they cope with the related social constraints? These questions open to a broader reflection on models in terms of family, marriage and sexual behavior in Tunisia.

This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter addresses the roles of changes in assisted reproductive technologies, returns to female experience and abortion rates in explaining the historical trend of child adoption. The second chapter assesses the effects of increased income inequality and decreased income mobility on timing of births and marriages and on the single motherhood rates. The third chapter establishes the importance of accounting for marital state in the models of indirect income uncertainty inference. Chapter 1 aims to explain the μ-shaped historical trend of child adoption in the US by emphasizing the role of the changes in the demand side of the market for child adoption. I argue that changes on the demand side such as increasing returns to female human capital and innovations in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) have played a major role in shaping the historical adoption trend along with the changes in the supply side, namely, increase in the abortion rates. I present a life-cycle model, in which an agent makes a fertility-timing decision based on the returns to her human capital and age-specific probability of conception. Under the assumption that adoption is an alternative to childbearing, i.e. an agent chooses to adopt after she fails to conceive, the presented model uses historical trends of returns to human capital and success rate of ART to explain changes in adoption trends. According to the model, increasing returns to female human capital were responsible for the delay in childbearing and therefore the increase in the demand for adoption until the 1970s. After 1970, the legalization of abortion decreased the supply of orphans, while innovations in ART decreased the demand by allowing women to have biological children at later ages. Around 1980, the effect of increasing returns to human capital overturned the one of advances in ART, which resulted in a slow recovery of the adoption trend. Chapter 2 studies the dramatic transformation that the typical American family has undergone since the 1950s. Marriage and fertility have been delayed, while single-motherhood rates have increased. The link between these facts emanates from the greater delay in marriage than that in first births. As “the Gap” between the age at first birth and the age at first marriage becomes negative for some women, out-of-wedlock first births increase. In my analyses, I focus on the increase in income inequality and the decrease in income mobility --- observed across two National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) cohorts of women --- to account for the above facts using an equilibrium two-sided search framework in which agents make marriage and fertility choices over the life-cycle. Marriage is a commitment device for consumption-sharing, providing spouses with partial insurance against idiosyncratic earnings risk. Agents derive utility from children, but children also involve a risky commitment to future monetary and time costs. According to my model, two observed trends in the income process produce these changes in the respective timings of marriage and fertility. First, the increase in income inequality produces incentives to delay marriage. Since single women tend to face higher income risk than do married women, all else being equal, a decline in marriages when young implies delayed births, which are perceived to be risky. Second, the decrease in income mobility also delays marriage as the insurance value of marriage decreases but accelerates fertility because it becomes less risky to have a child. The model qualitatively matches the observed changes in family formation and quantitatively accounts for a significant portion of the observed changes in marriage and fertility timing between the two NLSY cohorts. In Chapter 3 I aim to add to the indirect income uncertainty inference literature. The currently existing models used to infer earnings uncertainty from consumption decisions of individuals either use married couples as a unit of analysis or treat married individuals as singles. Income pooling and less than perfect correlation of earnings in marital unions provide spouses with marital income insurance. Not accounting for the marital insurance biases the uncertainty estimation results. In this chapter, I demonstrate some properties of the marital insurance bias in a stylized analytical model. In order to access the potential magnitude of the marital bias, I build a structural model which accounts for marital insurance. I then compare the estimation results of the model which accounts for marriage with the results of one that does not after using them on the simulated data set. In addition, I introduce a non-parametric income process in the structural model used for the indirect uncertainty inference. The main advantage of the resulting model is that, unlike the typical models in this area, it can be used on short-term panel data.

This paper contributes to the discussion on the effects of single motherhood on happiness. We use a mixed-method approach. First, based on indepth interviews with mothers who gave birth while single, we explore mechanisms through which children may influence mothers' happiness. In a second step, we analyze panel survey data to quantify this influence. Our results leave no doubt that, while raising a child outside of marriage poses many challenges, parenthood has some positive influence on a lone mother's life. Our qualitative evidence shows that children are a central point in an unmarried woman's life, and that many life decisions are taken with consideration of the child's welfare, including escaping from pathological relationships. Our quantitative evidence shows that, although the general level of happiness among unmarried women is lower than among their married counterparts, raising a child does not have a negative impact on their happiness.

Single motherhood is a growing phenomenon in South Africa, as it is in the world at large. The concept and structure of a family have changed over the last few decades and no single definition will suffice to describe or define it anymore. Various factors impact on the psychological wellbeing of the single mother. The psychological wellbeing or mental health of the single mother can influence her parenting abilities. The aim of this study is to explore the lived experience of a single mother with three dependent children, to gain a deeper understanding of her experiences as a single mother and the meaning she attaches to it. The point of view of this research is from a constructivist-interpretivist paradigm and from an ecological systems theory approach. This qualitative research study uses a single case study method with unstructured interviews to explore the participant’s experiences. Interpretative phenomenological analysis is used to analyse data, to identify main and sub-themes from the collected data, and to compare these themes with identified themes on single motherhood from existing research. The participant’s lived experience reveals that financial hardship is not the main contributing factor to stress experienced by this single mother. The accumulative effect of diverse stressors and the lack of social support due to prejudice and stigma seem to have a greater effect. This study generates questions around the stigma of single motherhood in South Africa. The reading of this text could raise the reader’s awareness of the challenges faced by single mothers and of prejudice against them. Single mothers are not less capable as individuals of handling the challenges of motherhood and parenting, but they are often exposed to more demands and stressors, compared to partnered mothers. Changing our perspectives on single motherhood can reduce prejudice, offer more social support and improve access to other needed resources. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Psychology / unrestricted

No description available.