Spanish families have modified their organisation and structure in recent decades. With regard to organisation, the traditional family model where the man is the sole breadwinner has been substituted by another model in which both the man and the woman are engaged in the labour market. As for structure, the family has varied its form and composition in recent years, for example with an increase in the number of single-parent families (graph 1). According to data from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE), in the year 2017 they represented a total of 1,842.500 families. Of these, 83.03% (1,529,900) were headed by women, while the remaining 16.97% (312,600) were headed by men.

The studies available to date highlight the fact that children who live in single-parent families have more probabilities of experiencing economic disadvantage (poverty, limited participation in school activities and leisure) in comparison with children from other types of families. In many cases, a sole economic breadwinner must manage work and family reconciliation alone, and this may lead to labour and personal contexts that are more precarious with regard to their implication in caring for their children¹.

However, it is not sufficient to talk about children’s living conditions only according to families’ incomes, i.e. child poverty. We must also talk about how the type of household is associated with the economic situation, because this may have an indirect impact on parents’ implication with their children, and therefore, on child welfare, with material deprivation being one of the key factors that intervene in children’s wellbeing. 

Numerous studies showing a higher unemployment rate among women, the existence of a salary gap favourable to men or greater labour precarity among working women in Spain might lead us to think that the children of single-parent families who live with their fathers should experience greater wellbeing than those who live with their mothers. 

However, the empirical evidence has not analysed in sufficient depth how the living conditions of children vary depending on whether single-parent families are headed by fathers or mothers. The advance of shared custody has increased interest in these types of studies, as there is an increasing number of fathers who head single-parent families (an increase of 6.18% between 2013 and 2017), sharing the care of children with mothers once the marital separation has taken place.

The aim of this study is to compensate for this shortage. As well as looking at the issue of parent gender, it will also take into account how household disposable income affects child material deprivation, since this is a determinant variable when it comes to covering basic household needs.

The data used to conduct this study originate from the INE or EU Surveys on Living Conditions (ECV or EU-SILC) of 2014, which is the national prolongation of the European Community Household Panel. 

On an annual basis, Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) incorporates a module to study in greater depth different aspects of household living conditions. The 2014 edition incorporated a module on material shortages, similar to another developed in the ECV of 2009, which included a specific set of questions regarding basic, educational and leisure needs for children aged under 16 years (INE, 2015). 

Regarding this set of questions, a measurement of child material deprivation is established that centres the analysis on children who live in single-parent households. Their standard of living is measured through three fundamental questions, all validated by numerous research studies in this respect²: nutrition and clothing, leisure and free time, and household conditions. Each of these questions is broken down into a series of categories according to which it is possible to measure and materialise the level of children’s material deprivation.

Nutrition and clothing:

• Having new clothing (not second-hand).

• Having two pairs of shoes suitable for the season.

• Eating fresh fruit and vegetables daily.

• Eating meat, poultry or fish daily.

Leisure and free time:

• Having age-appropriate books.

• Having outdoor leisure equipment (for example, bicycles).

• Having toys inside the home.

• Doing leisure activities.

• Enjoying at least one week of holidays per year.

• Being able to celebrate special occasions.

• Being able to play with friends and being able to invite friends home.

Household conditions:

• Having an internet connection.

• Having problems with noise in the home.

• Having environmental problems in the environs of the home.

• Having crime-related problems in the environs of the home.

The percentages that are measured in each of these categories can be consulted in Methodology Appendix.

A first question that must be accounted for is that in Spain, the level of material deprivation experienced by children living in single-parent households is greater than that corresponding to children who live in traditional families. 

This is confirmed by the data resulting from graph 2: the average material deprivation among families with one adult (14.45%) exceeds the average of families with two adults by over two percentage points (12.32%).

It is advisable to highlight some important points from graph 2. For example, in aspects referring to nutrition and clothing, levels of material deprivation for both groups are very close (5.14% and 5.32% in non-single-parent households and single-parent households respectively). However, in questions related to leisure and free time (15.68% and 17.59%) and mainly in categories relating to the household (13.63% and 18.10%), a greater disparity is observed. These results indicate that the priority for both types of households is covering the basic needs of children (clothing and nutrition). In contrast, more difficulties exist for single-parent families than for traditional families in aspects referring to leisure and household conditions.

The next focus is on single-parent families to calculate the average of child material deprivation according to whether children live with their father or their mother. From the data obtained in graph 3, it is deduced that single-parent households headed by men have a lower level of child material deprivation than households headed by women. 

The average for single-parent households headed by men is similar to that obtained for single-parent households headed by women. 

However, not all the categories presented in table 1 show favourable values for single-parent homes headed by men. For example, they show lower percentages of material deprivation with regard to having a home without noise, with a connection to the Internet, and where children can play with friends and invite them home and who have outdoor leisure equipment. Single-parent households headed by women are prominent for not having environmental problems or crime-related problems in the neighbourhood, and for being homes whose mothers can enjoy a week of holidays with their children. Also notable are the categories in which the percentages obtained are very close between both types of household, such as children’s nutrition, having toys in the home and being able to celebrate special occasions with them. 

The results obtained in table 1 could indicate that a certain heterogeneity exists between levels of child material deprivation in certain categories, both within each gender and between both genders. With a certain amount of caution, a possible explanation for these disparities would be that men and women do not have the same willingness to assign the budget to certain needs that are basic for the normal development of children in a single-parent family. 

Another possible explanation is the existence of a different level of implication of fathers and mothers within single-parent families. For example, the fact of having one week of holidays per year in single-parent households headed by women could mean greater implication of mothers in caring for the needs of their children. 

The results explained previously are obtained despite the fact that the salaries earned by fathers and mothers, as well as the total household disposable income, are not the same. From the data in the graph 4 it can be concluded that the average hourly wage for women heading single-parent homes is 28.75% below the average wage of men in male-headed single-parent households. In contrast, the average annual disposable income of single-parent households headed by women is 6.63% below the annual disposable income of single-parent households headed by men. 

Graph 5 reflects the relationship that exists between the annual disposable income of a single-parent household headed by a man or by a woman and the child material deprivation that exists in such homes. The distribution of the first variable has been divided into three parts, considering a low, medium and high level of disposable income, and the average of child material deprivation has been obtained for each of the income segments.

The data obtained confirm that the higher the household disposable income, the lower the level of child material deprivation. This relationship is not gradual or linear, as the percentages of child material deprivation obtained for both genders in the lowest income tercile considerably exceed the percentages corresponding to the middle and highest terciles. 

In these last two cases, child material deprivation is reduced by under 5% in single-parent households headed by men and to levels close to 5% in single-parent households headed by women. It is for this reason that it can be affirmed that annual household disposable income is a variable that conditions child material deprivation to a greater extent than the gender of the head of the single-parent household.

The results obtained offer evidence that the type of household in which children live is a conditioning factor for child wellbeing. An initial approach to material deprivation among children aged below 16 years shows that for this indicator, single-parent households obtain a higher percentage than traditional households. In the case of this analysis, the greatest disparity between both types of families is observed in the categories that refer to participation in the leisure of young people and the conditions of the household in which they live.

The level of child deprivation in households headed by men is slightly lower than that of households headed by women (12.37% and 13.82%, respectively). However, the difference between the two percentages is not significant from a statistical perspective. Despite this equality in the overall indicator of child deprivation, it is important to highlight the existence of different percentage values in certain areas such as those related to home security or the possibility of enjoying a week of holidays with children (higher in single-parent households headed by women), or the non-existence of noises in the home, having an Internet connection, the child having free time and being able to play with friends or invite them home (with higher values in the case of single-parent households headed by men). These disparities observed by categories could be indicating a certain heterogeneity in the preferences and willingness of men and women in the distribution of the family budget. The different degree of paternal or maternal implication in the needs of children in single-parent homes can also be seen.

Finally, different percentage values have been observed in the level of child material deprivation between single-parent households for different income levels. In this line two important conclusions are obtained. Firstly, the inverse relationship between child material deprivation and household disposable income does not follow a linear behaviour, as in the lower income tercile the percentage values are higher than those corresponding to the middle and upper tercile, in which the percentages are close to or below 5%. Moreover, disposable household income seems to condition the degree of child material deprivation to a greater extent than gender. In this sense it could be affirmed that, independently of the gender of the head of the single-parent household, a reduction in disposable income entering the household strongly determines the probability that children from these households will experience greater levels of child poverty or material deprivation.

BERGER, L. and MCLANAHAN, S.(2015): "Income, Relationship Quality and Parenting: Associations with Child Development in Two-Parent Families", Journal of Marriage and Family, 77 (4): 996 – 1015.

BROWN, S.L. (2010): "Marriage and Child Well-Being: Research and Policy Perspectives", Journal of Marriage and Family, 72 (5): 1059 – 1077.

ELKINS, R. and SCHURER, S. (2018): "Exploring the Role of Fathers in Non-Cognitive Skill Development over the Lifecourse", IZA Discussion Papers.

MCLANAHAN,S. and SANDEFUR, G. (1994): "Growing Up With a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps," Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

RIDGE, T. (2009): "Living with Poverty: A Review of the Literature on Children and Families", Research Report,594, Bath: Centre for the Analysis of Social Policy, University of Bath.

SUSAN, L. and BROWN. S.L. (2010): "Marriage and Child Well?Being: Research and Policy Perspectives", Journal of Marriage and Family, 72 (5): 1059 – 1077.