Updated | Majority of unemployed single parents 'wary' of child-care services

Malta has over 10,621 single parents according to the 2011 census, Family Minister Michael Farrugia said in a seminar on single parenthood. Farrugia said that there was a high incidence of these parents living in poverty or relative poverty.

Farrugia said single parents, depending on their income, were entitled to an in-work benefit of up to €1,200 per child, excluding allowance and €400 per child for those who attend 95% of schooldays.

“We want to encourage people to join the workforce and, if they don’t have the necessary skills, we are here to train them. Fighting poverty by relying on social benefits is not the solution,” Farrugia said.

Farrugia said the government was encouraging more students to further their studies by encouraging them to join the Alternative Learning Programme, instead of dropping out of school. He also spoke about the Youth Guarantee program, which is aimed at single parents who are under 23 years of age and who are unemployed. The program is meant to give single parents appropriate training which will help them to enter the work force.

“I come from a family who lived in sub-standard housing for 14 years. But they invested in my future and in my studies. We want parents living on benefits to give an opportunity to their kids and we are finding ways to support that,” Farrugia said.

“The government has also started a program in October to incentivize attendance at school, whereby children are given an allowance for attending 95% of lessons, which has already showed a significant increase in their attendance. The next step will be for the government to monitor the educational development of the students besides their attendance.”

Among future plans, Farrugia listed the tapering of social benefits over the first three years after they get a job.

 “In their first year, parents will get 65% of single-parent benefits, going down to 45% of benefits in the second year and finally to  25% in the third year, whereas employers will be given 25% of benefits to incentivize them to employ single-parents.”

According to one of the studies presented by Prof Angela Abela, Dr Fank Bezzina, Clarie Casha and Dr Rosemarie Azzopardi, at least 9% of single parents had more than two children in their household.

In a questionnaire carried out with 250 participants, the majority of which were unmarried women with a secondary level of education, 76% were looking after the family; 49% were in work and 17% still looking for a job. But only 28.4% were in full-time employment, while 4.4% were on reduced hours and 15.2% had a part-time job.  Of those who were unemployed, the majority said that they do not have a job because they are wary of child care services, and that they would rather spend their time taking care of the family.

The study showed that 50.4% of these participants did not know about the recent benefit scheme that allowed their social benefits to be tapered down while entering the work force.

Abela also focused on the need for emotional support and education to ensure that single parents have the necessary support and skills to go back to work. She said that education in the schooling sense is essential, but that there are many other facets of education including relationships and how to handle them. “

This need is highlighted by the number of couples which break up the moment the pregnancy is discovered,”

Abela also spoke about future research plans that include focusing on the fathers, reviewing the Youth Guarantee programs, and analysing the narratives of grandparents who often offer so much support to single parents.

These needs and plans were further highlighted by a second study presented at the seminar. The study was carried out by Dr Katya DeGiovanni, Prof Angela Abela, Ms.Claire Casha, Dr Rita Xuereb, Dr Frank Bezzina and Prof Paul Montgomery, and it focused on the international perspective, and how certain methods of research can be adapted to Malta.

In an intervention by audience members, Labour MP Deborah Schembri expressed concern over suggestions of reducing the age of sexual consent to sixteen. She argued that this move would ultimately increase the number of unwanted pregnancies without an effort to educate 16-year-olds further.

Fifth of single parents living with sick or disabled child

Around a fifth of these single parents live with a child suffering from a long-term illness or disability, according to a questionnaire-based research study.

“Our findings suggest that the reality for single parents is different to some statements often made about them,” said Professor Angela Abela, who carried out the research.

All of the 250 single parents questioned in this study were women. 49% of them were employed, 18% were registered as unemployed, while 33% hadn’t registered for employment for over a year.

Digging further, the researchers conducted interviews with 31 mothers who fell into the latter category. They discovered that around 40% of them cared for a disabled parent or child.

When asked, unemployed mothers said that they didn’t trust childcare, that there were few suitable job opportunities in the market,  and that employers were not family-friendly.

The most common jobs for employed mothers are clerical, sales and housekeeping jobs.

Only 11 of the women admitted to working illegally, with some explaining that it gave them more flexibility and others stating that they did not want to lose their social benefits.