The work and family reconciliation of single parents

: a qualitative meta-analysis

Abstract

The present paper aimed to understand how single parents reconcile their work and family life. With the increase of single-earner families, greater importance has been placed on how single parents succeed in working and taking care of their family obligations, what difficulties they experience and how these affect their well-being. Since the Covid-19 pandemic required many parents to work from home, increased attention was also paid to how they managed to work from home and look after their home-schooled children_ The methodological option used to address the research question was qualitative meta-analysis, as it provides an in-depth analysis and an unbiased interpretation of qualitative data collected from scientific studies. It was thus possible to identify, interpret and analyse the results of the research conducted on the topic between 2016 and 2021_ An overall sample of 18 articles were selected according to the qualitative meta-analysis protocol_ A content analysis of these articles was then performed. The findings indicate that most single parents struggle to reconcile their work and family responsibilities. Since most of them encounter difficulties to find a job because of their parental status, they accept a low-income job with non-standard working hours. Being a single-earner family, they face financial difficulties as they have to pay their bills on their own. The lack of family-friendly strategies and financial support add to the high level of stress and anxiety. Therefore, Human Resource Management may play an important role on reconciling single parents' work and family life through policies and practices that support and create better conditions ensuring single parent workers' well-being.

Date of Award	13 Jul 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Eva Dias de Oliveira (Supervisor) & Maria Isabel G. G. Castro Guimarães (Co-Supervisor)