• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.127-153
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• 2004

In the absence of a male provider the state must decide how far and under what conditions it will provide for the mother and her children. In the case of lone mothers, there are three main possible sources of income: the labour market, the absent father, and the state. However, the relative proportions of these three sources vary significantly from country to country as well as from individual to individual within the group of lone parents. Until very recently the UK has been alone among countries of the EU in allowing lone parents to draw benefits without making themselves available for work so long as they have dependent children. However, in the 1990s, the UK government introduced major changes to his policies regarding lone parents. The UK government attempted to restrict the role of the state as a source of income for lone parent families. At the beginning of the 1990s, the emphasis in the UK was put on securing more money from 'absent fathers' to maintain. However, the policy was unsuccessful and by the mid-1990s attention to the only other possible source of income for lone parent families, the labour market, was stepped up, notwithstanding the ambivalence of politicians about the desirability of women with young children entering employment. From 1998 the Labour government introduced a series of reforms aimed at reducing both worklessness and poverty by raising welfare payments to families both in and out of work, improving financial incentives to work and introducing a more proactive welfare system. The results presented here suggest that these policies have raised the employment rates of lone parents by around 5 percentage points, or 80,000. These employment gains have come from a welfare reform package that does not require lone parents to search for jobs, or uses time limits in welfare programmes. In addition these gains have been achieved despite generous increases in welfare payments for lone parents who do not work. These earnings gains combined with the more generous welfare are making rapid progress in reducing lone parents' poverty.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.54
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• pp.295-319
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• 2003

The study starts from the critical thought on why most of female-headed single-parent families are under poverty regardless of their hard working. The study is to explore the lives of low-income single-parent families as working poor and to develop comprehensive policies for them out of poverty and other social vulnerability, using the concept of social exclusion which has been broadly introduced in the field of social science. Specifically, the study aims to analyse the process of social exclusion of low-income single-parent households, by comparing the differential lives in the economic, social, political aspects among male-headed dual-parent household, female-headed single-parent household, and poor female-headed lone-parent household who is under the public poverty line. The study was based on the secondary data analysis. A total of 3182 samples(the first 2508, the second 235, and the third 439) were included. Using SAS 6.12, frequency, chi-square, means, and ANOVA were utilized for the statistical analysis. Results show that single mothers, on the whole, are vulnerable population in terms of employment, housing stability and income. Also, low-income households of single mothers are more negatively affected by the IMF economic crisis and carry more pessimism on their future. In comparison with male-headed households, single mothers have fewer support from social insurance as well as family resources and higher burdens of additional caring need for the old, the disabled, and the chronically ill. These findings identify the reality in which female-headed households with dependent children are exposed to the overall social vulnerability and thus are easily trapped into the social disadvantaged. finally, the study suggests the development of comprehensive policies and counter-measurements for low-income female-headed families to be the primary member in our society.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.38 no.7
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• pp.67-77
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• 2000

This study reviews and analyses the policy changes happened in Britain regarding the family and children. Traditionally Britain has employed non-interventionist policies for the family and child care assuming the family as a private domain. This policy had been reinforced during the Thatcher regime. However the traditional families that Beveridge had idealized have been rapidly disappearing and child poverty has become critical concern for Blair's New Labour government with the rising number of lone parent families. The New labour's child and family-friendly policies to enhance the family life have been examined on the basis of government reports on Child Benefit, WFTC, Child Support Agency and the plans to support parents and to implement the child and family-friendly practices.