The recovering jobs market is "leaving behind single parents" who are struggling to earn the income they need, a charity has warned.
In a survey carried out by Gingerbread, two-thirds of working single parents said finances are a constant struggle while one in 10 said they were not coping financially.
Their report, called Paying the Price: The Long Road to Recovery, found lone mothers and fathers are twice as likely than other workers to be working in low-paid jobs.
The charity, which questioned some 2400 single parents, found little evidence of an economic upturn in the lives of those who are working or "desperately trying" to break into the jobs market.
It called on the Government and employers to better support them, including offering in-work financial support and job security to help them out of poverty.
Gingerbread chief executive Fiona Weir said: "Single parents are working incredibly hard to provide for their families, but all too often they are barely keeping up with the costs of the essentials.
"There is little sign of an economic recovery for parents who have had to go without another meal and face the nagging, gnawing worry of bills marked 'final warning'. Our report shows that for single parent families, work isn't a golden ticket out of poverty."
Single parents reported feeling "disadvantaged", with few part-time or flexible jobs on offer for parents needing to juggle childcare with work. One in six said they worked multiple jobs, while a quarter had increased their working hours. Ms Weir added: "Single parents are the sole earners for their family, so it's absolutely vital that, when they go out to work, their job pays a decent wage and offers them stability. Without action from government and employers on in-work financial support, low-pay and job security, too many single parent families will remain trapped in poverty."
The report follows the release of figures, which found a rise in child poverty for single parent households where the parent works full-time, climbing from 17 per cent in 2011-12 to 22 per cent in 2012-13.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article