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. Thirty-one single mothers and coupled parents (16 single mothers, 13 coupled mothers, 2 coupled fathers), recruited through community organisations in four Swedish cities, participated in seven focus groups during spring 2023. While Sweden is considered a frontrunner in the gender revolution, I suggest that the policy assumption of equally shared parenting disadvantages low-resourced single mothers. Swedish social policies are predicated on a perceived equal division of parenting, but there are rarely checks to ensure that parenting is actually carried out equally. When the actual division is highly unequal, low-resourced single mothers lack adequate support to meet family needs. 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.
Lovisa Backman (Wed,) studied this question.