As discussed in chapter two, selecting lone parents into work activation based on the age of their youngest child is the most common approach and the one that has been
41 As mentioned above, the focus is on comparing selection criteria which is why the first approach, general activation, has been omitted and age of child has been discussed in the pervious chapter.
adapted by the current welfare-to-work reform in Britain. An alternative approach is to focus on the entry into lone parenthood and the potential consequences of this event in terms of upheaval for all family members involved as well as being or becoming the main earner of the new family unit. Therefore, the period when the latter become lone parents is treated as one requiring special support, in the form of financial assistance, which allows the lone parent to be a full-time parent and to prepare themselves to become the main earner. In practice, transition into lone parenthood is also limited by the age of the child, with social assistance being available to lone parents until their youngest child is three years and thereafter for one year after separation, until the youngest child is seven. The transition model has been implemented in Norway and France (OECD 2007). While lone parents have a very similar employment rate in both countries (incidentally around the level of the employment target set for this country), the poverty rate of lone parent households in work is substantially lower in Norway at three per cent compared to the ten per cent of poor working lone parent households in France (see table 6.2). Similarly, the overall child poverty rate is lower in Norway compared to France (four per cent compared to seven per cent respectively - table 6.2).
Table 6.2 Employment rates and child poverty rates of lone parents in transition models
Norway France In %
Employment rate 69 70
Poverty rate of working lone parents households 3 10
Overall child poverty rate 4 7
OECD 2007
The transition model will be examined in further detail taking Norway as a case study.
Norway has been selected for two main reasons: Firstly, work activation reforms for lone parents were introduced only ten years ago and a similar policy strategy and rhetoric was used then, as is found in Britain today, namely that the investment in childcare and other support for working lone parents justifies the reciprocal activation of lone parents. Secondly, both the in work and overall poverty levels are lower than in France which is of relevance as one of the central aims of the current welfare-to-work reform is to reduce the level of child poverty in Britain.
Starting with brief overview of the numbers and characteristics of lone parents in Norway highlights one of the main differences between Norway and Britain in terms of the availability of data on lone parents. The political prominence of the issue of lone parents and employment in the 1990s in Norway meant that a couple of dedicated surveys were carried out (see Kjelstad and Ronsen 2004, Syltevik 2003 and Kjelstad 2000). However, lone parents have since not featured prominently on the political agenda or as a subject of empirical research. Instead, like in other Scandinavian countries, families tend to be treated as a group regardless of the number of parents in the household. Therefore, the majority of the data reported here comes from the dedicated survey in the early 1990s. In the early 1990s then the proportion of lone parents of all families in Norway was around one in five families with dependent children (Skevik 2001). One in ten lone parents was a lone father and of the lone mothers the majority were separated or divorced (52 per cent) or not married (43 per cent - which included a substantial group of ex-cohabitees) rather than widowed (6 per cent – Skevik 2001; p. 91, table 5.3). The majority of lone parents in Norway tended to have one child only (65 per cent), tended to be older themselves (47 per cent are over 35) and have older children (only 27 per cent have children under five – all in Skevig 2001; p. 91, table 5.3). The employment rate of lone parents increased during the 1990s from 64 to 69 per cent of all lone parents (Skevig 2001). The employment rate of mothers in couples was higher, but only 40 per cent of these mothers worked full-time (over 35 hours), compared to around half of the lone parents (all in Skevik 2001; p. 91
Norway is different to the other Scandinavian countries with regards to gender equality in that it has had an ambiguous relationship in particular towards women and employment (Leira 199242). This ambivalent stance has historically also applied to lone parents and employment (Kjelstad 2000). The transition allowance prior to the 1998 reform reflected that ambiguity (see also Terum 1993 in Kjelstad 2000) as ‘on the one hand the allowance has served as a guaranteed minimum income for lone parents with small children. On the other hand the original intentions have been for that the period for receiving an allowance should be temporary, allowing the recipient time to prepare and qualify for, and to seek, paid work.’ (Kjelstad 2000; p. 346). In other words, the name transitional allowance aptly reflects the desired behavioural outcomes.
The notion of a ‘transitional benefit’ had been introduced in the first national piece of legislation in post-war Norway that focussed on lone parents, namely the 1964 Widow’s
42 This argument seems to have been first made by Leira as it is attributed to her in almost all other work on the subject.
and Mother’s Pension Act (Skevik 2001b). With the exceptions of widows over 60, the general expectation of lone parents was that they would move into or stay in work (Skevig 2001b and Kjelstad 2000). The rationale for introducing assistance to this group was that the lone parents in question were likely to include groups with little chance of finding employment in the labour market immediately, either because they had spent many years caring for their families or because they had not been providers before, e.g. because they were too young (see Skevik 2001b). The new benefit was income-related but not fully means-tested, i.e. earnings were taken into account but not capital and the provision included education and childcare allowances, as well as a one off payment to ease the initial transition (Skevik 2001). The initial act did not set a time limit for the transition benefit, but left both its duration and amount received up to the discretion of local boards (Skevik 2001b). This has changed since and prior to the 1998 reform, lone parents could receive the benefit until their youngest child reached the age of ten (Skevik 2007, Skevik 2001b and Kjelstad 2000). There have been several other changes to these arrangements, such as the introduction of an earnings related supplement for widows and the inclusion of widowers, divorced and separated lone mothers into the entitled group (see Skevik 2001b discussion). However, the main feature, namely, that lone parents with younger children can receive income replacement benefits when they first become lone parents has remained.
A question that periodically exercises policy-makers and politicians in several countries, namely that of how to establish whether a separation is genuine and therefore to prevent fraudulent claims, has also come up in Norway. In particular, when the transitional allowance was extended to separated and divorced lone parents in the 1970s (Skevig 2001b). After much debate it was decided that it should be the responsibility of the lone parent to inform the local boards if they started cohabiting.
(Skevig 2001b). This situation remains today, in that lone parents submit a statement each year to the local board on their relationship status. This statement is essentially taken on trust though the penalties for fraud can be harsh, e.g. having to repay all the fraudulently acquired benefit or imprisonment43. As Skevig (2001b) argues: ‘in the end, the majority of the Storting (Norwegian parliament – the author) agreed with the Government in that “meddling” and control with intimate personal matters was unacceptable, at least if it was done with respect to lone parents only, and rejected the cohabitation rule’ (2001b; p. 146).
43 Personal communication with Anne Skevig Grodem in Feburary 2009.
As mentioned above, one of the reasons for selecting Norway as a case study is their welfare-to-work reform in 1998. The three aims of the National Insurance Act (1998) were: ‘to improve the economic situation for lone parents, to increase their capacity to make their own living through paid work, and to improve the quality of public services towards this group’ (Syltevik 2003, p. 69). The reform contained six main elements:
• An overall time limit on social assistance receipt, in principle for three years or five years if the lone parent was in education or training,
• The maximum age of the child for a lone parent to be eligible for social assistance was lowered from 10 to 8,
• An activity requirement was introduced once the youngest child reached the age of three,
• Lone parents could receive social assistance for a year after separation, if their youngest child was under 10,
• The level of the transitional allowance was raised by more than ten per cent to ameliorate poverty among the recipients and
• A self-help and support organisation with the aim of empowering lone parents and providing mutual mentoring services was set up.
(all in Skevik 2007and Syltevik 2003)
The main changes introduced by the welfare reform were the time-limit for the social assistance and the activity requirement once the youngest child is three years old. The emphasis has shifted to the transition to work with income provision limited to lone parents with very young children. The substantial increase in the employment rate of mothers over the previous decades and therefore the weakening of the traditional male breadwinner model are regarded as having influenced this reform (Ellingsaeter and Gulbrandsen 2007 and Kjelstad 2000). Moreover, during the late 1980s and 1990s there was considerable investment into childcare and an extension of parental leave policies were made and this formed part of the argument for the reform in 1998, which suggested that childcare responsibilities for older children were no longer seen as an obstacle to paid employment and that lone parents should “utilise” the offer of being able to combine work and parenting given the investment made in them by society (Skevik 2007). Others have argued that the welfare reform came as a result of a more fundamental shift from focusing on the parent child relationship to the ability of the mother to enter the labour market, i.e. a change from a “relational” to “individualised”
motherhood (Syltevik 1998 in Kjelstad 2000).
In terms of the impact of the reform, Syltevik (2003) carried out a panel postal questionnaire with lone parents in Norway in 2000 and 2002 in order to estimate the effect on employment patterns of lone parents. According to this analysis, the reforms have led to a drop in the number of claimants and the employment rate of those lone parents who were no longer eligible for the transition allowance increased by twelve per cent between the two survey points (Syltevik 2003). However, in the absence of other data it is difficult to establish what percentage of this is due to the reforms and what is attributable to other factors, such as other policy changes or a buoyant economy. The main predictors for the labour market behaviour of lone parents prior to the reforms of 1998 were: whether they had been in work before becoming a lone parent, the age of the youngest child and the local unemployment rate (Kjelstad 2000 and Kjelstad and Ronsen 2003). Kjelstad and Rønsen (2004) argued that the reform seems to have had some effects, in terms of an increased likelihood of those eligible for the allowance to stay at home and those no longer eligible to move into employment. However, this effect was only observed for lone mothers and not for lone fathers (all in Kjelstad and Rønsen 2004). Furthermore, the authors analysed data from 1998, i.e. the year the reforms were introduced, and therefore it is not clear whether the above effects would still be observed more recently44 .
Still, the employment rate of mothers in couples with very young children, i.e. between one and two years old, is relatively high in Norway at around 65 per cent though it is estimated that around a third or those mothers work atypical hours with the father taking care of the child (see Kjelstad and Ronsen 2002 and Lande 2001 in Ellingsaeter 2008). In contrast to the development of more lone parents with younger children staying at home after the changes to the transitional allowance, it is estimated that the cash-for-care reform introduced in the same year, which offers parents in couples with very young children a choice to be paid for looking after their children rather than using public childcare services, does not seem to have resulted in a decrease in the labour market activity of mothers (or fathers) in couples despite high take-up of the new benefit (Ellingsaeter 2008). Kjelstad has argued that the policies introduced in the late 1990s have ‘pointed in two different directions for lone and married parents: towards a retrenchment in the economic rights of lone parents, and towards an extension of economic rights for not-lone parents (2000; 348). In other words, for one group the
A more recent reform, the Action Plan to Combat Poverty, introduced in 2002 which aim to provide additional services to disadvantaged groups such as lone parents and encouraged greater co
operation between the key organisations on state and municipal level is estimated to have some positive impact on the long-term unemployed but none for single parents (see Ellingsaeter 2008).
44
level of obligation has been increased while for the other, the level of choice over how and when to combine work and parenting45 .