The “monomarental” families are the ones with the highest risk of labour exclusion
Single women who live with childrenn under six years old are more likely to be unemployed or having temporary contracts and experience more difficulties to access to economic resources. This situation comes from the rejection that the market makes of the resulting costs of having children which ends up having an impact on the hiring of single women because they assume the childcare in a 77.8% of the cases. These are some conclusions of a research of the Universitat de València that highlights the vulnerabilities experienced by many women according to the family situation in which they live.
13 de march de 2017
“We may conclude that, regarding to the relation with the labour market, the cost derived from having children only rests on women”, determines the research team. In the event of the Valencian Country, a 77.4% of the monoparental families, 3 out of 4, are “monomarental”. This is corroborated by the article “Famílies monoparentals i treball remunerat: una anàlisi des del País Valencià” (One-parent families and paid work: an analysis from the Valencian Country), publisehd by Sandra Obiol, Rafael Castelló and Immaculada Verdeguer, Faculty of Social Sciences of the Universitat de València.
According to the research published in the magazine Archivos de Ciencias Sociales, while the risk of poverty or social exclusion in Spain had a 29.2% in 2014, the percentage reached 53.3% on the subject of exclusion of families with only one person in charge and dependent children. From those amounts, the article analyse the working position that those heading the Valencian monoparental families occupy.
The research is based on a sample of 4,107,465 people on the Spanish side, of which 291,3421 live on the Valencian Country, drawn from the Population and Housing Census of 2011 of the National Statistics Institute. Based on the study of the position in the labour market of the sample, offers an analysis about the employment impact of variables such as being woman, with no partner andhaving children under sixorsixteen years old, as well as the data cross that allows to assess the situation of exclusion of themonomarental families.
A woman leading a monoparental family with dependent children under sixteen years old is more likely to finish working in temporary contracts, with wages below average, being unemployed or developing unpaid family support. This fact is even more true when the age of the children is lower than six years old, according to the research. Nevertheless, the article highlights that the damage is given on the convergence of the variables, since having children, regardless of gender of the progenitor, as well as having a partneror not, do not cause significant effects about the position on the labour market. Therefore, these variables are constitutive of exclusion only in the case of women, who constitute a group segregated when are responsible of children in dependent age but have no partner.
The articles concludes that the precariousness of work has a female face. That is the reason why the research questions that the statu quoof the relation —of partnership, gender and relatives— can be maintained in the future. Taking into account that the welfare depends on the employment incomes, the two female experts and the male expert pose that society runs the risk of advance to a generation of women for who having children will be a sacrifice to which they will not be willing to while the deterioration perspective of the labour conditions continues. This is an approach that, as the authors point out, “embarrass that, despite the individualized discourses of the social structure, in this case the gender has unequal consequences in people’s life and the Welfare State does not palliate them”.
Research Group
Sandra Obiol, Rafael Castelló and Inmaculada Verdeguer form the research group IPRODES-Research in Inequality Processes. Sandra Obiol holds a Doctorate in Sociology. She belongs to the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology of the Universitat de València and her research lines are focused on the analysis of the change in familiar relationships, family policies and the relation between education and families. Rafael Castelló, also holder of a Doctorate in Sociology, has focused his research on the analysis of the social sctructure and class inequalities. In addition, he has also done research in the area of Sociology of Language and Demography. Inmaculada Verdeguer is Vice-dean of Culture and Equality of the Faculty of Social Sciences. Her main research line is the analysis of gender inequality.
Article:
Obiol-Francés, Sandra; Castelló-Cogollos, Rafael; Verdeguer-Aracil, Immaculada (2016) “Famílies monoparentals i treball remunerat: una anàlisi des del País Valencià”. Arxius de Ciències Socials, núm. 34. 79-98.