The Single Motherhood Penalty at Midlife: The Role of Marital Status for Mothers’ Careers in Sweden, 1905-2015

Maria Stanfors, Centre for Economic Demography/Dept of Economic History, Lund University
Gabriel Brea-Martinez, Centre for Economic Demography-Economic History Lund University

Single mothers make up the largest share of single parents in the present as well as in the past. They have fewer resources than partnered mothers with implications for their own well-being and their children’s future. Knowledge about this transmission of disadvantages is limited for past contexts because existent research mainly covers the post-1970 period and provides limited insights into the changing influence of economic disadvantage as societies modernize and welfare states develop. We apply a long-term perspective and study the implications of growing up with a single mother in Sweden using individual-level data from the Scanian Economic and Demographic Database (SEDD) 1905-2015. We investigate the risk of poverty during childhood as well as long-term consequences of growing up with a single mother compared to other family and breadwinner configurations. Poverty is measured in relative terms. Long-term consequences are measured in terms of midlife attainment of education, occupation, and income. We test for gender differences across periods. Preliminary results from multivariate regressions show that growing up with a single mother was associated with elevated poverty risks during childhood. Both the persistence of living with a single mother as well as the age at which this was experienced matter. Growing up with a single mother was also negatively associated with midlife educational attainment, occupational status, and income. These associations persist across time despite comprehensive reforms and welfare state expansion determined to equalize later life consequences of adverse childhood experiences. For women, growing up with a single working mother was associated with better adult outcomes compared to other family and breadwinner configurations, indicating that role model influence may mediate disadvantage.

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 Presented in Session 209. Drivers and Consequences of Advantage and Disadvantage