Introduction

British lone parents are much less likely to be in paid work than their counterparts in other countries. One of the reasons for this is their social and demographic profile: British lone parents are more likely than those in other countries to be young, be never-married, have young children, and have three or more children. All of these factors tend to reduce employment rates for lone parents. But these are not the only reasons for low employment rates of lone parents in Britain. This chapter provides cross-national demographic data on lone parenthood in order to throw light on variations in employment rates. It begins by taking an overview of demographic change and its relationship to economic and cultural factors. It then presents cross-national statistics on a range of demographic aspects of lone parenthood such as marital status, gender, age, ethnicity and social class. It ends by reviewing the employment rates of lone parents across different countries and assesses the role of demographics in explaining variations.

Demographics, economics and culture

There are strong links between demographics and the economy, particularly as far as the labour market is concerned. In relation to lone parents, we know that people within this group are more likely to have paid jobs if they have certain demographic characteristics such as being older and having fewer and older children. This makes it seem as though demographic factors are responsible for the employment of lone parents and while this may be the case to some extent, the relationship between demography and employment is likely to be more complex. For example, perhaps lone parents who have chosen to have fewer children and have them at older ages are women who have better educational qualifications and have always had better employment opportunities than lone parents who have children at younger ages. Thus employment opportunities might be responsible for certain demographic characteristics as well as being a result of them.

The link between demography and economics is similarly complex at a macro level. With the decline of industrial society demographers now talk of a ‘second demographic transition’ characterised by high rates of divorce, cohabitation, births outside marriage and lone parenthood. .