Where are the absent parents and why aren't they at the job centre?

It's no secret or surprise that some 90 percent of single parents in the UK are women. It follows therefore that most of the parents accessing Universal Credit are mums. The ones already doing it all or most of it have another thing to add to their mental loads - the admin, the frustration, disempowerment and anxieties that come with relying on the state instead of a partner for financial support.

The system that demands so much of solo mamas has almost nothing to say to the parents who leave. I wasn't asked a single question about my son's dad in terms of financial contribution or to what degree we co-parent. He wasn't asked either. Absent parents - in most cases, fathers - can enjoy full anonymity regardless of what, if any, responsibility they take for their child. Mothers, on the other hand, must give up their right to privacy in terms of their finances, their right to choose when and how to work, their time to attend appointments, and, for many, their emotional wellbeing due to the stress of conditionality. This is alongside the exhaustion of solo parenting plus managing or navigating the relationship between their ex and their children, which, for many is at best tense and, at worse, abusive and traumatic. This asymmetry in how the state treats single mums is decades, centuries old. It's a discriminatory choice from a deeply patriarchal and paternalistic system.

Domestic abuse and state control

In the UK, one in five adults experience domestic violence in their lifetimes and in one in three of these cases there is at least one child living in the household, according to ONS (2023). Although there are no official statistics on the proportion of single parents who have ended or fled a relationship due to DV, it is clearly a high figure. Many of these parents will seek support from domestic violence charities and, for financial support, from the Job Centre. Yet there are job centre coaches trained in working with survivors of domestic violence. In fact, when I asked my local job centre who the domestic violence lead was, one coach had been picked that day but had received no training on it to date. Only one job coach in the office I spoke to that day had undertaken domestic violence training - online and voluntary. While survivors of domestic violence are in theory .... this is not made known to new claimants. It is therefore left to domestic violence organisations to inform survivors and for the individual themselves to disclose this to their job coach. Had I been in this position when first accessing Universal Credit, I would not have felt safe to disclose to any of the work coaches or employment advisors I encountered. When survivors choose to disclose, the lack of knowledge means that after the six months non-conditionality period is up, they are likely treated similarly to other single parents in terms of conditionality and the threat of sanctions. The harm this does to the trust that a survivor puts into a work coach or employment advisor cannot be under-estimated. The psychological and practical toll of relationship breakdown where DV was present, along with likely ongoing post-separation DV the takes more than six months to recover from, it is not linear or logical. The parent's and their children's grief and trauma, steps to heal and/or access therapy, along with the practical consequences of house moves, school moves, changes in contact for children.. doesn't just last six months. And for all survivors, state conditionality policies mirror the domestic control and surveillance that they have fled. The nature of the relationship between work coach and claimant is a subordinate one, with women facing constraints to their independence and agency in calls to account for how they spend their time and money. The idea therefore that employment advisors be both sympathiser and surveiller is a dangerous and retraumatising one.

What the system asks of absent parents

Of course there is no requirement for non-resident parents to demonstrate what they are doing to support their children. There is no conditionality equivalent to threaten or penalise parents who don't put in their 30 hours (and the rest) into looking after their children every week. Instead, these individuals are able to work, live, sleep, eat, travel and relax as individuals without children, without even entertaining the idea of a mental load.

Child Maintenance is the only mechanism - albeit a small one - by which absent parents are compelled to contribute financially towards their children's expenses. It remains to be seen whether its long-awaited reform will make a tangible difference to the single parents who are relying on its enforcement. If it still doesn't, this will be by design.

Enforcing patriarchy

State control over single mothers is decades, centuries old. Not only is it a patriarchial policy but it is a paternalistic and a classist one too. The parent who stays is both penalised and martyred - expected not only to bring up children and look after a home but to cares for other family members and undertake paid work too. In order to receive even modest financial support, the state then heaps even more demands onto mothers after everything they have already done to protect and keep their families together. Universal credit conditionality assumes mothers are free to attend appointments, requires her to work more if she is already, to prove her worth to such an extent that unless she is getting no rest, she is not actually superwoman after all. When I asked about ... i was told when asleep - 15 hours considered fine...

The system's response to this is to place almost all of its demands on the woman. To monitor her, to sanction her, to require her to prove her worth. And to ask almost nothing of the man.

It's not just about mothers though. The fact the UK government has heaped ever more conditions on lead parents receiving financial support illustrates how unequal our society is, and how decision-makers are mandating against fathers being equally responsible for raising their children. No-one wins in our patriarchal society. Which is why benefits reform is urgent, because policy change and culture change depend on each other.

That needs to change. Not just in policy, but in culture. The Job Centre is full of single mothers. It should not be.