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Lone parents and activation – towards a typology of approaches

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

Tina Haux
Tina Haux*
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK
*
*Email: thaux@lincoln.ac.uk
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Abstract

There has been an international trend towards activating lone parents, with the United Kingdom being the most recent example. It has been argued that the most common criterion for deciding which lone parents should have to be available for work is the age of the youngest child. However, by examining the activation policies in the OECD countries more closely, a number of criteria used in conjunction with age of the child have been identified, such as the availability of childcare and the employability of lone parents. It is therefore argued that a typology can be developed consisting of three main approaches: general activation, age of child and no activation, with three sub-categories for the age of child approach. The different (sub-)categories will be illustrated using country case studies as examples.

Keywords

activationlone parentswelfare-to-workUnited KingdomOECD
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , June 2013 , pp. 122 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Taylor & Francis

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