UK Lone Parents
Labour and marriage markets

The low standard of living and falling rates of labour force participation among lone mothers in the United Kingdom is a serious policy concern. In Discussion Paper Nos. 302 and 303, Programme Director John Ermisch and Robert Wright use data from the 1980 Women and Employment Survey (WES) to examine the factors influencing lone mothers' decisions to enter and leave paid employment and to remarry.
In Discussion Paper No. 302, Ermisch and Wright adopt a stochastic model of labour turnover in order to investigate how the probability that a lone mother will start or leave a job is affected by her family's demographic characteristics, her human capital attributes and macroeconomic variables representing average wages and the business cycle. The analysis of the WES data confirms the authors' theoretical predictions concerning the effects of human capital endowments and family characteristics. Above-trend rates of GDP growth appear to raise the rate of entry to paid employment. No clear relationship can be established from the WES data, however, about the impact of benefits on lone mothers' employment transitions.
In Discussion Paper No. 303, Ermisch and Wright use the WES data to investigate how the duration of lone parenthood varies with a lone mother's human capital attributes and her family's demographic characteristics. They find that lone mothers with a job are likely to remain lone parents longer, as are women who worked in a manual job before their marriage dissolved. In contrast, being employed in the year immediately prior to marital dissolution has the opposite effect. Ermisch and Wright find no evidence that higher welfare benefits prolong the duration of lone parenthood. US studies have also found no relationship between benefits and remarriage.
Ermisch discussed this research in more detail at a lunchtime meeting, reported in this Bulletin.

Employment Dynamics among British Lone Mothers
The Duration of Lone Parenthood in Britain
John F Ermisch and Robert E Wright

Discussion Paper Nos. 302 and 303 February 1989 (HR)