While more mothers have been participating in the paid workforce over recent years,
the employment rate of lone mothers remains lower than that of couple mothers.
Increasing employment rates of lone mothers is a goal for policy makers as
participation in paid work is seen as central to reducing poverty and welfare
dependence within lone parent families. However, if the work that lone mothers’
undertake is unstable they may continue to be at risk of poverty and welfare
dependence. In order to examine whether or not lone mothers are more likely than
couple mothers to experience unstable employment, calendar data from all seven
waves of the HILDA survey are used to identify and compare the rate at which lone
and couple mothers move into and out of employment. The calendar divides each
month into thirds, and captures employment status in each of these time periods, so
short periods of employment and non–employment can be measured. These data show
that in any period lone mothers are less likely to be employed than couple mothers. Of
those employed in a period, lone mothers are more likely to transition out of
employment than couple mothers but not employed lone and couple mothers are no
different in their likelihood of transition into employment. The analyses also consider
whether factors other than lone parenthood differentiate mothers in their employment
transition rates. These analyses show that educational attainment, work history and
age of youngest child may influence, in part, the different employment transition rates
of lone and couple mothers.