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Direct Link to
European Commission Report:
European
Commission
Directorate-General
for Employment, Social Affairs & Equal Opportunities
2007
Study on Poverty & Social Exclusion Among Lone-Parent
Households in Europe
Examples of Gender Excerpts:
Statistics on demographic and
economic household characteristics reveal significant transformation in the
family.
The declining propensity to marry
goes with a general increase in age at the first marriage. Not only are people
marrying less, but they also marry at a later stage of their lives.
Another salient phenomenon of the
demographic transformations recorded and in particular Europen countries, is
the rapidly changing age structure of the population. The combination of
decreasing fertility rates and increasing life expectancy has led to a rapid
process of population ageing.
Some major developments in
household forms in Europe:
(i) The proportion of single-person
households has risen, which is probably due to the increasing proportion of
young and elderly people living alone;
(ii) Similarly, there has been a
growth in single-parent families - with women usually as the head of the
family;
(iii) The number of couples with
children has decreased. The number of couples without children is rising;
(iv) The increased participation of
women in the labour market has led to a growing proportion of dual earner
families;
(v) The data also reveals an
increase in families without any earner.
Along with the changes in family
forms, comes a deep-reaching transformation in the distribution of the risks of
low income, poverty, and social exclusion across the population. As a
consequence of this new emerging structure of income risks, the ability of
European welfare systems to protect individuals from the new risks of social
exclusion becomes a major issue.
Recent research has shown that the
persistence of a gendered division of labour within the family, the changing
conditions of the labour market, and growing marital instability, have led to
increasing risks of poverty and social exclusion investing the female member
of the couple....
EXAMPLES ON POVERTY & SOCIAL
EXCLUSION AMONG LONE PARENT HOUSEHOLDS - See
Report Table 1.3 for all posted statistics.
Lone Parents as % of Families With
Dependent Children
Country
Lone
Mothers Lone
Fathers
Bulgaria
16.7 3.3
Denmark 17.6
2.9
Poland
12.3 1.8
Spain
6.9 8.1
Portugal
10.1 1.4
The
Netherlands
13.3 1.7
Slovenia
14,7 2.3
Ireland
15.2 1.5
France 14.9 2.5
Germany 14.9 2.2
Italy
9.9 1.6
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