A Sociological Study of Economic Problems Faced by Mothers in the Single Parent Family

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue IX, September 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186

A Sociological Study of Economic Problems Faced by Mothers in the Single Parent Family

Mendis MRA¹, Jayarathne SDY^2
1Department of Sociology, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka
²Department of Anthropology, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka

I. INTRODUCTION

The human family is a universal social institution, the sociologists and anthropologists defined this in various ways. The family is not just a cultural thing but it is a universal institution (Murdock, 1949). Family is a factory producing human personalities and it is a unit with the married couple and their children. The most important function of the family is to provide the child with a social status and socialization process (Mead,1964). Generally, a person born into society takes the membership of two families. Those are family of orientation and family of procreation (Cone and Pelto, 1967).
In modern society family faces a large number of changes. In the current special set up, one of the major problems that a family encounters is disorganization. Through it, the single parent family has been created. Single parent family is a family where only one of the parents, either mother or father, has to fulfill the financial, material and emotional needs of the children, without the help of someone else. Single parent families may be created due to widowhood, divorce, under-age pregnancies without a lawful marriage, leaving of one party without divorce (https://www.encyclopedia). According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 15% of the world’s children live in single-parent households. Of the single parent families, 85% are single mothers. This is more common in industrialized countries. (https://singleparenthack.wordpress.com).
Some analysts have suggested that female headed families are responsible for the growth of an underclass. Indeed, evidence from a number of studies suggests that single parents are at increased risk for financial hardships (Weissman,Leaf and Bruce,1987). The result of the study revealed that financial problem was the main stressor for majority of the single mothers. The emotional life of the single mother was also affected by their single status. Majority of the single mother reported that they felt lonely, helpless, hopeless, lack of identity and lack of confidence. Also they had develop poor food and eating habits ( Kotwal and Prabhakar,2017).

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