Single Mothers and Financial Security: Rethinking the “Traditional Family”

Editor's note: This post is the last in a series of three exploring the issue of asset building and single motherhood. Haley Eagon, a current senior at Williams College in Massachusetts, interned with the Asset Building Program this summer and authored these posts. Read part one on data and definitions of single motherhood and part two on policy design in the series.  

In response to growing rates of single motherhood, many have advocated for a return to the “traditional family.” This traditional family is often envisioned as the ideal self-sufficient unit, with a mother and father who share the burdens of earning income and raising children. Stephanie Coontz, author of “The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap,” remains unconvinced that visualizations of this model are based purely historical fact. As she puts it:

“The fact is, however, that depending on support beyond the family has been the rule rather than the exception in American history, despite recurring myths about individual achievement and family enterprise. It is true that public aid has become less local and more impersonal over the past two centuries… but Americans have been dependent on collective institutions beyond the family, including government, from the very beginning.” (pgs 69-70).

Proponents of marriage view the institution as an important way to produce more stable and healthy families. The Heritage Foundation and other organizations produce frequent work on the role marriage may play in boosting families out of poverty.

Single Motherhood in Historical Context

I would argue that the picture is exceedingly more complicated than convincing women to marry and “do what’s best.” The rise of single motherhood interplays with the decline in living wage opportunities for men with lower levels of education over the 20th century. Single mothers may not have as much luck creating economically secure families by marrying their children’s fathers if the job prospects and earning potential of both remain so limited. For many women, the availability of financially secure, emotionally stable, and supportive partners is slim. For example, as Kathryn Edin explains in Promises I Can Keep, mass incarceration has had a disproportionate impact on low-income men of color and their communities (pg 98). The long-term impact of incarceration (diminished job opportunities, restrictions on economic and political participation, mental health problems, and other factors) can make these men unlikely candidates for partnered fatherhood. In light of the realities of the job market and incarceration trends, some women have made the choice that they (and their children) would be better off as a single mother.

More research and conversation is needed about how to build the stability (economic, social, and otherwise) of single mother-headed households. As Coontz writes:

“Given that single parenthood is likely here to stay, a more productive research issue might be to move away from broad generalizations and identify which aspects of single-parent families produce negative outcomes and which are associated with positive outcomes.”

For example, much attention is focused on the amount of time single mothers have to give to children as opposed to two-parent married households. She points to several examples of how this plays out in reality:

“Adults in single-parent families tend to spend less time supervising homework or interacting with teachers, behaviors that have negative effects on school performance, but they also spend more time talking with their children than adults in two-parent families, a behavior that has positive effects on school achievement. Single parents are less likely to pressure their children into social conformity and more likely to praise good grades than are two-parent families, behaviors that tend to produce higher academic performance.” (The Way We Never Were, 224).

By stepping back and considering the potential positive side of single parenting, and more thoroughly examining the role economic security (or lack thereof) plays on children’s outcomes, we can create a more reflective and nuanced dialogue on single parenthood, that supports single mothers instead of demonizing them.

Asset Building for Single Mothers

Numerous existing asset building ideas and policies can also play a role in supporting the economic security of single mothers and their families. Multiple studies show that more assets mean a better and more stable future, regardless of family structure. Margaret Sherraden, author of Striving to Save: Creating Policies for Financial Security of Low-Income Families, writes, “Empirical studies show that financial assets provide a cushion for women who have experienced separation or divorce, or other single mothers… Families with assets transfer more to their less well-off children… When poor single mothers have assets, their adult children are less likely to be poor.” Policies which promote the accumulation of short and long term assets, such as AutoSave (a workplace savings program for low-wage workers) and the concept of the Financial Security Credit (which incents and helps families save at tax time), are already providing promising solutions. More work is needed to establish exactly how asset building programs and strategies can help create economic opportunity for single mothers and their children and address the unique challenges they face.

Ultimately, instead of lamenting why more women today don’t marry their children’s fathers, we can spend time more productively considering why so many single mothers lack basic financial stability. The next step would be prioritizing women’s ability to gain that financial stability. There are rational and well-documented reasons why women are not getting married, and a one-sided push towards marriage will not solve the underlying problems which plague America’s low-income people. Valuing the input of single mothers themselves into the conversation regarding public policy would be a good place to start. We need to help all Americans, and particularly single mothers, build financial stability while simultaneously respecting personal choices about family structure.