These couples, like those in registered marriages, are vulnerable to relationship breakdown. Their vulnerability results from the difficulty of undertaking paid employment while bringing up children alone. Lone fathers, who tend to have older children and higher levels of participation in paid employment, were financially better off than lone mothers. Because one-parent families have fewer members on average than couple families with dependent children, their costs of living are lower. When incomes are adjusted for differences in family composition and size, the difference in income between the two family types is reduced.
Lone parents are more likely to experience housing stress than couples with dependent children.
One-parent families are also more likely to live in rented accommodation. As the age of their youngest child increased, both lone mothers and partnered mothers were more likely to be in the labour force, and differences in the rate of labour force participation between the two groups decreased. Lone parents tend to rely on family and friends if they are not able to care for children themselves. The use of formal child care by lone mothers depended on the hours they worked. Lone mothers working part time were less likely to use formal child care than partnered mothers.