Summary

Increased divorce, cohabitation and lone parenthood reflect profound changes in sexual attitudes and relations. Sex and procreation have come to be separated from marriage.

Stigma associated with cohabitation has almost disappeared, but is still attached to lone parenthood, the growth of which during the 1980s and 1990s provoked moral panic among some policy makers.

Lone parenthood is often viewed as the lesser of two evils by lone mothers, generating financial, legal and housing problems but offering an escape from unsatisfactory relationships, and occasionally from unemployment and low status work.

Employment and employment opportunities for women are still influenced by traditional gender divisions of unpaid and paid work. Nevertheless, gender-based differentials in the labour market narrowed noticeably between the 1970s and 1990s, although improvements were limited to full-time work.

Low female wages extend the time that lone parents and couples with children spend on benefit (since a woman's wage is typically insufficient to take a family off benefit and out of poverty). However, a second earner even receiving low wages can protect families’ earners against poverty caused by low pay or unemployment.

Poverty has been reinstated to the political lexicon after a period in the 1980s and 1990s when its existence was denied and attention focused almost exclusively on reducing claimant numbers.