Jobs for Single Mothers that Promote Employability and Healthy Children

Flexibility and Living Wages for Working Single Mothers Keep Kids Happy and Mom Employed

Jobs for single mothers that offer living wages and flexibility allow working mothers to balance full-time work with the needs of her children.  Balancing work and children keep the kids happy and the single mom employed and working for self-sufficiency.

Jobs for single mothers that offer flexibility and hours that accommodate childcare contribute to alleviating poverty statistics and contribute to the health of young children.   A 2009 study published in the Journal of Family Issues found that preschoolers fared better in homes where working single mothers were allowed to work a rotating schedule to accommodate childcare.   Working mothers did not fare better than unemployed mothers in caring for their children. It also found that education was a factor in both improved mother child relationships for both working single mothers and unemployed single mothers.

Due to single mother and welfare reform policies, more working single mothers with young children are entering the work force at unprecedented rates.  By not rushing to create flexible jobs for single mothers and provide educational financial aid for single mothers in government sponsored single mother programs, the nation is failing the children and contributing to poverty cycles.

At-Home Jobs Solve Transportation and Emergency Set Backs for Low Income Single Mothers

Childcare and transportation are a working single mother’s largest obstacles to stable employment.  There are childcare single mother subsides through single mother welfare programs, but many single mothers are not aware these subsides exist, or can not find childcare sources that meet the requirements to use the childcare subsidies.   Low quality childcare results in frequent call-offs and quickly leads to terminated employment.

Many single mothers choose single mother jobs in the service sector because of the high availability of jobs, and the opportunity to request off work or switch schedules for the needs of a child that hardly exist in the 9-5 world.  However, low income jobs for single mothers are also more likely to require evening hours when it is difficult to find quality childcare, and 50% of a low wage paycheck going to childcare hardly make it worth it to work when a young child can benefit more from a mother being at home. Low income jobs for single mothers in the service sector are also more likely to keep single mothers in the cycle of poverty according to a 2004 reported study by the Department of Heath and Human Services.

Transportation is harder on low income single mothers. A low-income single mother can not afford to fix a car.   A bus does not accommodate jobs for single mothers out of the city, jobs require working nights, or the logistics of childcare. Jobs for single mothers that offer work at home opportunities or telecommuting eliminate the transportation challenge.    A single mother working at home doesn’t have 50% of her paycheck going to childcare, doesn’t have to call off, and doesn’t have to worry about lack of transportation. 

Business Slow to Adapt Jobs for Single Mothers that Keep Working Single Mothers Employed

For decades policy makers have touted to businesses the benefits of flextime, rotating schedules, onsite day care, telecommuting and four ten hour days instead of five eight hour shifts for working single mothers.  Jobs for single mothers that provide flexible accommodations for working single mothers allow a single mother to balance her need to work with the needs of her children.  Yet businesses have been slow to create jobs for single mothers for the increasing single working mothers entering the workforce

Jobs for single mothers using advances in technology have the potential to move masses of single working mothers from poverty, however welfare reform policies have ignored education and businesses have ignored the demands of working single mothers.  Flexibility is the help for single mothers that can promote steady employment and happy children for our nation’s rising number of working single mothers.