Struggling Single Parents
While Finland does a great job providing for dual parent families, single parent families are usually the ones that need the most help. Social stigma is not a strong stress factor for single parents in Finland like it is in the United States but conflict
between work-family is significantly higher among parents without partners.
However, contrary to the situation in most other countries, single
parents in Finland are rarely considered low-income and their issues
reconciling work and family do not usually stem from financial
difficulties.Image courtesy of BohPhoto
The increase in non-standard working hours, decreases the parent’s options of accommodating childcare centers, and the additional stress of not having a partner to depend on for back up care, creates a lot of stress among
single parents.
Some find themselves with very poor networks of friends and family,
which leads to extreme stressors on a day-to-day basis. Often parents work all day and because they
have no network to help care for the children, there is significant anxiety
about the children spending too much time at the daycare center or not being
able to find and pay for a daycare center that has non-standard hours. Expanding
municipal day care hours and
creating more flexible care options for parents, especially those with
non-standard work schedules, is a top priority in family policy at this
moment.Image courtesy of Tree & J. Hensdill
References:
- Kröger, Teppo and Minna Zechner. 2001. SOCCARE: Care Arrangements in Single Parent Families, National Report: Finland.
- Salmi, Minna, Johanna Lammi-Taskula and Pentti Takala. 2008. International Review of Leave Policies and Related Research 2008: Finland. Budapest: Institute for Social Policy and Labour
