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We conceptualize individual and contextual explanations for time trends in single-mother poverty, building on a framework developed by Brady, Finnigan and Hbgen (2017). (2017) distinguish between the prevalence of risk factors for poverty (i.e. Single Mothers in Sweden: Work and Welfare in the Welfare State - JSTOR Its possible to choose either the Elterngeld or ElterngeldPlus or even to combine them both. Hypothesis 2a: The growth in single-mother poverty in Germany in the 1990s and the slow poverty decrease since can partly be explained by a failure to reduce penalties associated with nonemployment and part-time employment. In light of these developments, compositional changes among single mothers in the United Kingdom should have reduced poverty risks. Sabine Hbgen is a guest researcher at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. Despite such support, single parents are among the population groups with the highest risk of poverty if the other parent refuses to pay maintenance for his or her child. McLanahans (2004) narrative of sociodemographic change as a driver of social inequality features this perspective. McLanahans (2004; McLanahan and Jacobsen 2015) diverging destinies hypothesis captures this strand of explanation. Poverty is multifaceted, and has many explanations. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Our final samples consisted of single mothers between age 20 and 59years old: 5,045 single mothers in Germany; 17,968 single mothers in the United Kingdom, and 10,774 single mothers in Sweden. However, this research has been unable to explain the trends and comparative patterns in single-mother poverty rates in recent decades. Policy-makers have been trying to make it easier for women and men to reconcile the two. 2009; Hbgen 2018, 2019; Maldonado and Nieuwenhuis 2015; Misra, Budig, and Moller 2007; Misra etal. Click here for more information about employee benefits in Germany. Prevalence of single motherhood, active age (25-59 - ResearchGate Figure 3 (panel AG) describes how some key socioeconomic and sociodemographic risk factors developed among single mothers over the 5-year periods between 1990 and 2014. Most single mothers cannot work their way out of poverty without the right kinds of supplemental support. Single mothers were among the groups hit most by the changes (Alm, Nelson, and Nieuwenhuis 2020). But family models are becoming more diverse: According to the latest Family Report, Germany had around eight million families with children below the age of 18 in 2015. All you have to do is click on one of the listedBundeslaenderand the first address that comes up is where you need to apply. All expats need to know about taxation & the tax system in Germany, responsible tax authorities, ELSTER & asking tax advisors for help with German taxes. The benefit of using register data is that income data are registered with great levels of precision and (in Sweden) validity, and that it is possible to calculate sampling weights (related to the survey part of the data), which achieve a high level of representativeness. Overall, penalty effects seem to be more decisive than composition effects in Germany, but none of these reaches statistical significance. , Dec 13, 2022. Rather, the different factors explain poverty trends of single mothers to varying degrees across countries, and hence they should be considered in conjunction. We will now sequentially discuss the role of prevalence effects and then that of penalty effects respectively for each country. low education, unemployment, marginal employment) cumulate among the subgroup of single mothers, and in how large the penalties are for these factors. This technique is mostly used for single womenand same-sex couples using donor sperm. First, looking at prevalence effects, these contributed to explaining changes in single-mother poverty in Sweden and the United Kingdom, but not so much in Germany. It matters not only how common a risk factor for poverty is among a social group, but also how strongly it is associated with poverty. The number of same-sex couples with children is still comparatively low in Germany, though it has more than doubled since 1996 from 3,000 to 7,000. Moreover, in the United Kingdom, it is more common for a single mother to live with three or more children than in Germany or Sweden (panel F). Description Children in German single parent families live in poverty five times more often than children who live with both parents. The German social security system: info on benefits and allowances available for expats in the case of sickness, unemployment, old age or low income. To address this, anchored poverty compares observed incomes to a poverty line in a given reference year (the anchor), adjusting this poverty line only for changes in prices. The health of single mothers and fathers in Germany - PMC This must also be requested from the tax office. Misra, Joya, Stephanie Moller, Eiko Strader, and Elizabeth Wemlinger. For Sweden, the results from the decomposition analysis (figure 5 and table 2) confirm the descriptive findings in figure 3 that prevalence effects are not the main driver for the rise in single-mother poverty. The analyses for Sweden were performed on data from the Household Economy database (Hushllens ekonomi, HEK1). We define our dependent variable as relative income poverty, which is measured according to the EU at-risk-of-poverty definition: A household is at risk of being poor if its disposable income is less than 60% of the national median equivalized2 household income. This is topped up by your employer, if you have one. You will also have to complete an application at this time, of which your health insurance agent will assist you with. PDF Single parents in Germany: the career of a topic in social - DJI How much holiday leave do you get in Germany? Single-parent workers must assure the tax office that they can receive the relief amount. Known as a 'New Deal for Lone Parents', part of the new social policy aims specifically at the group of single mothers, and concentrates its activation efforts on integrating them in the labour market, in response to the prevailing situation where lone mothers show a very low labour participation rate and - mirroring that - a high dependence on . This is also a reason for the small average number of children per family; for 53 percent of families in Germany have only one child. What Is A Relief For Single Parents? The steep rise in anchored poverty in 1991 reflects a data issue in the GSOEP due to German reunification and has no substantial meaning. Anyone who can receive child benefit (Kindergeld) or aids from the child allowance (Kinderfreibetrag) is entitled to this benefit. In the United Kingdom, labor market policies were also reformed in the 1990s and 2000s. Second, to detect shifts in prevalence, we examine the time trends in single mothers social composition. However, since 2001 the redistributive capacity of the welfare state in terms of poverty reduction seems to be decreasing. We will provide you with the best and latest tax tips in the future. Although the framework has originally been used for decomposing and explaining population-level poverty rates, we demonstrate it is well-suited for studying the diverging poverty trends of single mothers as a subgroup across different welfare state contexts. What is a social security ID (Sozialversicherungsausweis / Rentenversicherungsausweis) and why do you need one in Germany? Last, the 2008 reform of the maintenance scheme included the expectation of single mothers full-time employment as soon as the youngest child reaches the age of three. 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She currently works at the Berlin State Commission on preventing child and family poverty (within the Berlin state administration). Our conclusions are not affected by these differences in operationalization across countries, because our main focus is on analyzing trends within countries. For future research, this importantly brings the relative position of a risk group into focus as an additional type of explanation for poverty: not only should the demographic composition and policy benefits of a risk group be considered, but also of the rest of the population. Single mothers are vulnerable to living in poverty. Panel G shows the trend in prevalences of never married single mothers in Germany and the United Kingdom only: Since the 1990s, never having been married became more common among single mothers to in both countries. It is also possible to reduce theElterngeldby 50% and have it paid over twice the amount of time outlined above. Own calculations. One of the main changes throughout the period was the dismantling of the generous unemployment insurance system, which has meant that income replacement was lowered for the earnings-related unemployment benefit and eligibility rules tightened for both earnings-related and flat-rate benefits (Angelin, Johansson, and Koch 2014).