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ABSTRACT
Research on the relationship between lone motherhood and social class is indeed limited. Drawing on 39 in-depth interviews, the overall aim of this article is to increase knowledge of the ways that working conditions and access to economic resources impact on Swedish lone mothers’ opportunities to integrate paid work and family. One assumption is that lone mothers are guided by culturally shaped ideas about the proper way to be a mother, and that variance between mothers’ notions of good mothering and the means for their realization, i.e. sociological ambivalence, may give rise to conflicts and dilemmas. Results show that low incomes, non-standard hours and temporary employment reduced working-class mothers’ prospects of practising the kind of mothering they considered proper, creating dilemmas and high levels of conflict. Mothers could not always effectively use the rights granted to parents by the Swedish welfare state. The variances between notions about good mothering and the means for realizing them were not as big for middle-class mothers, thanks to greater access to economic capital and flexible working hours. Different opportunity structures hence significantly influenced lone mothers’ opportunity to combine paid work and caring commitments in ways they found appropriate.
RESUMEN
Las investigaciones sobre el vínculo entre ser madre soltera y la clase social son realmente escasas. Basándose en 39 entrevistas en profundidad, el objetivo general de este artículo es aumentar el conocimiento en relación a cómo las condiciones laborales y el acceso a recursos económicos impactan en las oportunidades de dichas madres, en Suecia, de integrar el trabajo remunerado y la familia. Una hipótesis es que las madres solteras se guían por ideas arraigadas culturalmente sobre la forma correcta de ser madre. Los resultados muestran que los bajos salarios, los horarios poco convencionales y los empleos temporales son factores que reducen las posibilidades de las madres de clase trabajadora de practicar el tipo de maternidad que consideran correcta, creando también dilemas y conflictos. Estas diferencias entre la idea de buena maternidad y las formas para llevarla a cabo no son tan grandes en el caso de las madres solteras de clase media, esto gracias a que tienen un mayor acceso a capital económico y horas laborales más flexibles. Por lo tanto, las diferentes oportunidades laborales influencian significativamente las posibilidades de las madres solteras de combinar el trabajo remunerado con el compromiso de cuidar a su familia.
Acknowledgements
This paper is part of the research project ‘Lone Mothers and Long Hours’, which was conducted in collaboration with Jenny Alsarve, Terese Anving and Åsa Lundqvist. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for constructive and helpful suggestions on this manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Christine Roman is a Professor of Sociology at Örebro University, Sweden. Her area of research interest is continuity and change in gender relations in modern society, with a particular focus on the reconciliation of paid work and family commitments and the family division of work.
Notes
1. The economic transfer system is constituted by the provision of a universal child allowance, a means-tested housing allowance (of which lone mothers are the largest beneficiary group) and state support to lone mothers when the fathers are not able to pay child maintenance (Duvander, Ferrarini, & Johansson, Citation2015, p. 58). Need-based social assistance schemes are also available.
2. The latter use the term ‘structural ambivalence’.
3. In 2012, average earnings in Sweden were 29100 SEK (Larsson, Citation2013, p. 16).
4. One mother had been granted a sick leave pension.