Exploring everyday coping strategies of single mothers: the mediating role of social support networks

In Southern European countries, the political and ideological configuration of family policies has historically emphasized the role of the family in providing social integration and in compensating for deficiencies of the welfare state. The family, therefore, represents one of the most important risk management and risk coping options, especially for people with low income. In this field, female-headed single-parent families represent a particularly interesting target of study. Even if being a single mother does not in itself predicate a condition of need, there is a wide consensus among researchers that single mothers are one of the groups with the highest risk of poverty and social isolation. This vulnerability stems from the interaction between economic disadvantages and gender inequalities in the labour market and in welfare systems. This is especially true in geographical contexts (such as the Mediterranean area), characterized by the chronic inability of local welfare system to satisfy resident needs and the persistence of traditional models underpinning the division of domestic tasks. As a result, the family has a burden that women tend to shoulder on their own. There is indeed a strong research evidence showing the crucial role of social support networks in defining successful coping strategies by female-headed families. How these coping strategies deal the demographic and behavioral changes in family arrangements and the worsening of life conditions at times of crisis represent an open research question. In such a context, a pilot study on a set of single mothers living in Naples was conducted, by using both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and data analysis. The interest is analyzing everyday survival strategies of single mothers by considering the mediating role of social support networks.