A Paradox of Activation Strategies: Why Increasing Labour Market Participation among Single Mothers Failed to Bring Down Poverty Rates

Activation strategies have aimed to increase labour market participation among lone mothers in order to reduce the disproportionately high share of them living in poverty and claiming benefits. However, the potential poverty-reducing effects of increasing labour market participation are being weakened by certain counter-trends, and this findings holds true across different types of gender regimes, as a comparison between Germany, France, Sweden and the United Kingdom shows. Although participation rates among single mothers rose in the upswing before the financial and economic crisis, their poverty rate remained the same or actually increased. This is partly to be attributed to the fact that the increase in employment rates has not restored the “pioneering” role of lone parents as working parents.