Lone parenthood is an increasing reality in the 21st century reinforced by the diffusion of
divorce and separation. This volume provides a comprehensive portrait of lone parenthood at the
beginning of the XXI century from a life course perspective. The contributions included in this
volume examine the dynamics of lone parenthood in the life course and explore the trajectories
of lone parents in terms of income poverty labour market behaviour wellbeing and health.
Throughout comparative analyses of data from countries as France the United Kingdom Ireland
Germany Belgium Sweden Switzerland Hungary and Australia help portray how lone parenthood
varies between regions cultures generations and institutional settings. The findings show
that one-parent households are inhabited by a rather heterogeneous world of mothers and fathers
facing different challenges.Readers will not only discover the demographics and diversity of
lone parents but also the variety of social representations and discourses about the changing
phenomenon of lone parenthood. The book provides a mixture of qualitative and quantitative
studies on lone parenthood. Using large scale and longitudinal panel and register data the
reader will gain insight in complex processes across time. More qualitative case studies on the
other hand discuss the definition of lone parenthood the public debate around it and the
social and subjective representations of lone parents themselves. This book aims at
sociologists demographers psychologists political scientists family therapists and policy
makers who want to gain new insights into one of the most striking changes in family forms over
the last 50 years.This book is open access under a CC BY License.
