Single mothers 'do just as good a job as couples'

Not being able to take her daughter on day trips is something that bothers Tamzyn Hutchings. As is the look she gets when she tells people she is a single mother. "It's a pity look, one that says they are automatically judging you. But nobody knows the reason why someone is a single parent: there can be lots and lots of reasons," said the NHS maternity support worker from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.

According to a new survey, Hutchings is one of a growing number of single parents struggling not only with stigma but also to make ends meet, despite having a job. A study by the charity Gingerbread, as part of its Paying the Price project, suggests that 67% of lone parent families are constantly struggling with their finances, and that one in 10 are not coping at all.

Describing its results as "grim", the group said the push towards flexible working was acting against single parents, with 56% reporting that they cannot get work at all and others unable to work the hours they need to meet their living costs.

The survey, of 2,486 lone mothers and fathers earlier this year, found 75% had been hit by welfare cuts and 39%, were in low-paid jobs – compared with 21% of all workers nationally. The most recent government figures, for 2011-2012, show that the average employment income for single-parent households was £110 a week, compared with £390 for all UK households.

There are also concerns that more single parents have been forced to become self-employed – 20% compared with 15% of non-lone parents – with indications that they are paid less than employed people.

The results come as new research contradicts the idea that children suffer in cognitive terms from being brought up by single mothers. A study for the Economic and Social Research Council by Dr Susan Harkness of the University of Bath found children's development was "little affected" by their family structure.

Although numbers of lone parents have increased rapidly, with one in three children born in 2000 having spent some time living with a single mother by the age of 11, once socio-economic differences were factored out, these children did just as well.

"Essentially there is very little difference between the results," Harkness said. "We only looked at single mothers, because lone fathers tend to live with older children, and their entry into lone parenting is usually a very different one. But once you take out the factors such as poverty, there is little evidence that lone motherhood has a detrimental impact on children's cognitive development.

"The impact of lone parenthood on emotional outcomes differs, however, with children who are born to lone mothers having similar outcomes to those in equivalent "intact" couples. But the emotional outcomes for children whose parents separate in early childhood are poorer than for children in otherwise similar families."

This comes as no surprise to Gingerbread's director of policy, Caroline Davey. "It's nice when academics prove the case, but there is plenty of evidence that parenting is about quality, not whether there is one or two. It just so happens that single parents are more likely to live in poverty. Single parents are a resilient bunch but this idea we are being sold that you can work your way out of poverty is just not working for them. One of the things we hear all the time is just that sense of frustration from parents whose experience is at odds with what they are being told in terms of economic upturns and unemployment rates. There is a palpable sense of growing insecurity too, with temporary and zero-hour contracts. They are working really hard, doing their utmost, and all they hear is that they must be benefit scroungers, but 23% of working single parents who want to work more hours can't get them."

She pointed out that less than half of single mothers receive any maintenance payment from the absent parent, and that the legal costs of chasing payments too prohibitive for many.

Child poverty in working single-parent families has increased in the past couple of years – more than one in five (22%) of children in families where single parents work full-time are now in poverty, and this rises to 30%, where single parents work part-time. A quarter of working single parents also reported a reduction in wages by their employer in the last six months.

For Tamzyn Hutchings this month has been especially tough: she has run out of money, and until she gets paid next week, she'll be reliant on her retired mother to help out her and her one-year-old daughter Neave. After paying her rent and childcare costs, Hutchings is left with less than £30 a week for food, bills and the normal extra costs of life."My mum did look after my daughter at first, but she found it exhausting. Then she had a hip replacement so I had to find a nursery. Work was good and let me change from shift work to daytime hours so I could use a nursery, but it's only temporary as it's not really fair on other staff. I don't know what I'm going to do. You just feel guilty all the time. I'm her sole carer so I want to be with her, but I need to work.

"And I want to work, even if I'm not any better off than if I didn't work. It does get to you when I can't spoil her or take her places, I do worry about when she starts school, not only the cost of a uniform but the fear that I won't be able to pay for her to go on school trips with her friends."