Welfare Support and Poverty Response: The analysis on the government, the market and the community welfare support system of single mothers in Beijing

In the context of changing social economic and structure in China, poverty of single mothers is becoming an important issue in social policy and social welfare. How do single single mothers react against poverty? What kinds of welfare support are provided to them by the government, the market and the community? Could single single mothers alleviate poverty successfully under the present welfare support system? In order to answer these questions, this study takes the low-income single mothers in Beijing as the research target and examines the structure, context and effect of their welfare support system which were composed by the government, the market and the community. The study puts forward a new welfare support system design for single mothers by studying the main characters and the main problems of the actual welfare support system.;The study takes a qualitative approach and the analysis is based on the materials stemmed from the in-depth interviews of 20 low-income single mothers in Beijing, Xuan Wu district which were taken on Nov 2006-Jan 2007 and Jan 2008-Mar 2008 respectively. The main findings are described as the following:;Firstly, the government support system provided welfare support for single mothers through danwei institution and social assistance system. Danwei used to provide general welfare for single mothers and ensure their economic security. With the demise of danwei , many working single mothers started to xiagang (lose job) and became poor. Social assistance system was recently established in China to ensure the subsistence security of the poor and single mothers were also included. But since the subsistence allowance was too low, the benefit of its effect limited.;Secondly, the market support system provided welfare support through the free labor market. Single mothers in this study confronted the double discrimination due to gender and age in the labor market; and they usually only get low-income job in marginal employment. Most re-employed single mothers in this study were still living in poor conditions, they were in fact working poor.;Thirdly, the community support system provided welfare support for single mothers through family, neighbours, colleagues, friends, community organizations and NGOs Family was the main support resource for single mothers in this study the government and the market. Parents, brothers and sisters had provided plenty of support for single mothers such like economic, house and caring support which helped them respond to poverty and other needs. The diversity of family support had led to the diversity of single mothers' economic status. The ex-husbands and their families usually had little connections with single mothers in this study and the former hardly provided any welfare support for them. The neighbours usually provided caring support while the colleagues and friends usually provided working and emotional supports. The community organizations and NGOs provided support for sourcing employment, emotional support and short-term monetary or material support for single mothers.;The study concludes that to cope with poverty, single mothers in this Beijing small sample had to ask for formal welfare support, mainly social assistance, medical assistance and family assistance. Single mothers in this study had a welfare support system primarily based on the family and taking the family as the latent welfare provider by stressing the mutual responsibility of family members. Although this type of welfare support system can ensure the subsistence security of single mothers, it cannot help them stay away from threat of poverty. Considering the situation of China, it is suggested that the welfare support system for single mother should be primarily based on employment and taking the government, family and NGOs as the complementary sources of welfare support. This will help single mothers strengthen their self-development and independence, so they can positively and effectively respond to poverty.