Supporting the family: lone mothers, paid work and the underclass debate

Abstract

Lone mothers are often portrayed as one of the basic components of the 'underclass', with supposedly deviant cultural norms and a reliance on state benefits. In this article we draw on data from both in-depth inter views with different social groups of lone mothers and representative sta tistical data from the 1991 Census Household Sample of Anonymised Records. We show that those groups of lone mothers who are most likely to rely on state benefits in fact hold a particular 'gendered moral ratio nality' that is in line with dominant British norms about motherhood. In contrast, those groups of lone mothers who are likely to support them selves through paid work—such as Black lone mothers—are more likely to hold gendered moral rationalities that deviate from mainstream social norms. We also show that issues of patriarchy and ethnicity are primary in relation to those of class in these rationalities. In conclusion, we argue that any government attempts to 'bring back' traditional family values will work against another government objective—getting lone mothers off state benefits and into the labour market.