Role of social workers to support single mothers: A case study of welfare receivers in Iran
Mohammad Reza Iravani*

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Management Science Letters
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Role of social workers to support single mothers: A case study of welfare receivers in Iran
Mohammad Reza Iravani*
Department of Social Work, Islamic Azad University, Khomeinishahr Branch, Daneshjou Blvd, Iran
A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T
Article history:
Received June 5, 2011
Received in Revised form
August, 3, 2011
Accepted 5 August 2011
Available online
6 August 2011
The women who lose their partners normally face tremendous challenges among their parents
and in society. Women may lose their husbands for different reasons such as divorce, drug
addiction, violence and migration. They may often look to build a new life very quickly but will
find out that society does not treat them, properly. It is more difficult to find job and even a job
opportunity does not provide sufficient pay. In this paper, we study the impact of different
affecting parameters on empowering single mothers such as audacity, social responsibility,
trouble shooting, flexibility, stress tolerance, etc. We choose 200 single mothers who receive
welfare from the government of Iran and distribute a questionnaire among them based on four
different questions associated with social, economical, feeling and empowering. The results
indicate that audacity and social responsibility are the most important items while being
optimistic, independent and flexibility are counted as having the least impact on empowering
single mothers.
© 2012 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Single mother
Empowering
Welfare impact
Audacity and empowering
Social activity
1. Introduction
The women who lose their partners normally face tremendous challenges in society. They may lose
their husbands for different reasons such as divorce, drug addiction, violence and migration and may
often look to recover their lives very quickly but will soon find out that they must overcome to many
challenges such as handling their children on their own, feeding the family and paying lots of bills.
The society does not look at a single mother as previously and, in some countries, it is difficult to
recover a previously lost life, very easily. There are various studies on how to empower the single
mothers to increase their abilities and skills to help them manage their lives. The studies mostly look
for the impact of different parameters on empowering single mothers such as audacity, social
responsibility, etc.
Sun and Li (2009) studied whether the effects of parental divorce on adolescents’ academic test
performance vary by sibship size. They observed that interactions on adolescents’ academic
352
performance were completely described by differentiation in parental financial, human, cultural, and
social resources.
Wickrama et al. (2006) investigated changes in family financial conditions and the physical health of
married and recently divorced mothers. They studied on how divorce followed by single parenthood
undermines the long-term physical health of rural mothers using four waves of survey data collected
in Iowa, USA from 336 married and 80 divorced mothers during a 10-year period and they reported
that single-parenthood creates financial difficulties for rural mothers. In addition, this financial
adversity was linked to self-assessed physical health trajectories, which could contribute to change in
morbidity. Divorce is one of the most important factors of chronic stress at midlife. According to
Goldstein (1999), nearly half of all marriages in the USA end in divorce. Johnson and Wu (2002)
reported that divorce has both mental and physical health consequences.
Wu and Hart (2002) studied the effects of marital and non-marital ::::::union:::::: transition on health and
reported similar results. Taylor et al. (2010) studied life stress, maternal optimism, and adolescent
competence in single mother. They emphasized on positive impacts of divorce among women who
divorced in African American society and highlighted the need for further studies of processes and
resources, which promote positive outcomes for African American mother-headed families and single
mother families in general.
Wu and Eamon (2011) investigated the effects of involuntary unemployment and underemployment
in single-mother families. They used 2004 panel of the survey of income and program participation
(SIPP) to investigate patterns and correlates of unemployment and underemployment among singlemother
families and reported substantial employment problems. Based on their results, although
approximately one-half (55.6%) of the single mothers had adequate employment, 30% experienced
unemployment or involuntary job gaps, and approximately 15% experienced underemployment. The
results also indicated that age, education level, past work experience, and homeownership were
related to a reduced risk of employment problems. While, work disability, other family income,
receipt of cash benefits, and state unemployment rates place single mothers at an increased risk of
unemployment and underemployment. The findings suggested social policy implications and targeted
assistance for those at-risk single mothers trying to secure adequate employment.
Noonan et al. (2007) examined the impact of welfare reform, labor market conditions, and the earned
income tax credit (EITC) on the employment of black and white single mothers. They reported that
during the period of economic expansion, increases in the EITC were the most important factor,
accounting for approximately 25% of the increase in employment for both black and white single
mothers. Declines in the unemployment rate and welfare reform were less important, together
accounting for an additional 25% of the increase.
Frish and Zussman (2008) presented a study on the effect of transfer payments on the labor supply of
single mothers. They reported that following the enactment of the law the labor supply of uneducated
single mothers fell by about 10%, due to a decrease in the employment rate and working hours but,
from an economic perspective, the impact of the law on the labor supply of single mothers was not
significant. The tax and welfare benefits, which provide income to single mothers, have changed
dramatically in recent years. These changes began as far back as the mid-1980s and these tax and
welfare changes have sharply increased the employment of single mothers and cut welfare
regulations. Meyer and Sullivan (2004) studied the impacts of welfare and tax reform for the material
well-being of single mothers in the 1980s and 1990s.
In this paper, we study the existing challenges among single mothers who live in a city of Esfahan,
Iran. The present investigation attempts to assess the existing challenges women face and possible
suggestions on empowering the single mothers to reach a better life style. The presentation of this
M. R. Iravani / Management Science Letters 2 (2012)
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paper first presents the structure of the research in section 2 and the details of our findings are given
in section 3. The paper concludes the contribution of the paper in section 4.
2. The proposed study
One of the responsibilities of most countries' officials is to provide support for single mothers through
establishing special organizations. These organizations are responsible to provide aid and special
supports to empower single mothers. The support activities include welfare fees, training and
consultation. There are literally four groups of single mothers, who divorce from their partners as
follows,
• Drug addictions: When a person is addicted to drugs, he cannot continue normal
relationship with his wife nor can he provide financial support for his family. In such
circumstances, most mothers prefer to raise their children away from the consequences of
drugs and violence.
• Widows: Many single mothers lose their partners in different forms of accidents, decease,
etc. In such case, the family may not have financial support and need to receive
temporary care from the government so that they would be empowered.
• Divorced: Many women prefer to separate from their partners when there are lacks of
faiths, love and they face violence from their partners. In such cases, they prefer to live
with their children away from their partners simply by divorcing their partners.
• Immigration: There are many cases, where the husband needs to travel to another city or
country and cannot provide support for his family (Boot, 1995).
During the past decade, there have been several economical turmoil incidents in global economy.
From the infamous incident of September, 11 to recent real state chaos started in United States, the
negative consequences have influenced many people round the world. People have lost their jobs and
faced with lots of bills, which need to be paid. As a result, the rates of single mothers are growing in
the world and more women have needed social and economical support.
In Iran, when women get divorced, the society may look at these people differently. They are not
normally welcome to their parents' home and it is more difficult for them to find jobs especially when
they are supporting some children at various ages. The problem somehow becomes more complicated
in small cities when most people know each other's. Drug dealers may target these women and there
are some cases where they are involved in prostitution activities. These issues not only hurt single
mothers but also jeopardize their children's futures. The children who become familiar with such bad
experiences may wish to retaliate from the society and some of them are involved in crime activities.
Therefore, this could motivate governments to support single mothers to raise their children hoping
that the new generation would immune from their parents' bad experiences.
In this paper, we study the impact of four independent variables of economical, social, sentimental
and empowering single mothers on 200 single mothers who receive welfare from the local agency
located in the city in year 2010 and they all lived with their children. The questionnaire consists of 31
questions based on the four features in terms of social, economical, sentimental and empowering
skills and they are all divided into Likert scale (Likert, 1932).
3. The results
The first observation of our survey about the single mothers who participated in our survey indicates
that 17 percent of them have no education, 45.5 percent either finished their high school or they have
354
2 years college education and the rest of them had 4-year university education or more. Note that
most of these people were young people with one or two children, which shows an increase rate of
divorce among people. The survey shows that 35.5 percent of the single mothers have less than five
years of job experience, 34 percent had between five to ten years of job experience and 30.5 percent
had more than ten years of job experience. Note that the welfare pay in Iran only covers a small
portion of single mothers' costs and they must work to cover all their living expenses.
The other question of our survey is to concern whether they have finished living skills program or
not. According to our survey, over 75 percent of the people took part in such programs and less than
25 percent of the people did not attend such program. The primary objective of these courses is to
help single mothers increase their skills and to work and receive affordable income. The Pearson
correlation between single mothers' audacity and empowering them indicates that there is a positive
relationship between these two variables when the significance level is 0.01. The other observation
from our survey is that there is meaningful relationship between social responsibility and empowering
single mothers when the significance level is 0.05. Note that the Person correlation between these two
variables also indicates a positive relationship. We did not find any meaningful relationship between
two variables of empowering and flexibility and stress tolerance. In addition, being optimistic does
not necessarily lead to empowering single mothers.
In terms of single mothers' general skills, our survey indicates that audacity and social responsibility
are the most important items with an average of 73.82 and 61.42, respectively. While being
optimistic, independent and flexibility are accounted with an average of 34.71, 36.26 and 38.52,
respectively.
In terms of diversity, flourish inspiring, being independence and responsible maintain the highest
variances of 98.40, 98.40 and 83.17, respectively. In addition, interpersonal relationships, tolerating
stress and flexibility maintain the minimum variances of 46.51, 50.98 and 46.51, respectively. We
have performed a linear regression between the empowering as a function of four independent
variables and the result yields R2 = 0.56 . In addition, ANOVA test result gives F=5.78 with P-value =
0.000, which means there is a meaningful relationship between empowering variable and personal
under the confidence of 95 percent. Note that the regression analyze does not confirm any meaningful
relationship between empowering and being optimistic or idealistic.
Our survey indicates valid t-student results for some parameters such as audacity, trouble shooting,
flexibility, self-reliance and self-flourishing since the correlation ratio between these variables and
empowering single mothers are 0.1, 0.12, 0.12, 0.13 and 0.10, respectively, which indicates a
meaningful relationship between these variables and empowering single mothers.
In order to see whether there are any differences among the working skills variables and empowering
single mothers, we perform ANORA test. The results indicate that the F-values between single
mothers' skills and their types are meaningful, which means that there is a different among the
contribution of each working skills variable. The results of HSD test also indicate that the impact of
trouble-shooting maintains a higher score than other working skills variables. In addition, the average
number for self-working skills is more than the average number for being optimistic and being
realistic. Finally, the average number for flexibility is more than being responsible in society and
concurring.
We have performed a two-way t-student test between the independent variables and the results of tstudent
values for audacity, social responsibility, trouble shooting, flexibility, stress tolerance, being
realistic, being optimistic, being independent, impulse control, self flourishing, inter-relationship
skills and overall concurring were 5.8, 7.16, 4.6, 4.86, 7.13, 6.72, 6.43, 5.73, 6.19, 6.44 and 6.03,
respectively, which are meaningful under 0.01 significance level. A regression analysis also indicates
M. R. Iravani / Management Science Letters 2 (2012)
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that there is a meaningful relationship between trouble shooting skills and empowering with a
correlation value of 0.15.
Based on the results we received in this survey, we can conclude that training plays an important role
on increasing single mothers' skills. Therefore, it is suggested that regional government spend more
training programs to help single mothers upgrade their skills. The other effort is to help single
mothers setup small businesses by granting loans and facilities. The other important issue is that the
welfare money given to single mothers does not cover their expenses. As a result, children of these
families need to work and this could create serious problems in future. The government must make
sure that the children are financially supported and they are encouraged to continue their education.
The other important issue is to help single mothers' family increase their social activities by inviting
them to participate to some social activities, actively.
4. Conclusion
In this paper, we have studied the impact of different affecting parameters on empowering single
mothers such as audacity, social responsibility, trouble shooting, flexibility, stress tolerance, etc. The
present study chose 200 single mothers who receive welfare from the government of Iran and
distributed a questionnaire among them. The questionnaire contained different questions in terms of
social, economical, feeling and empowering skills. The results have indicated that audacity and social
responsibility are the most important items while being optimistic, independent and flexibility are
counted as having the least impact on empowering single mothers. The proposed study has found that
single mothers receive negligible amount of welfare, which could not help them manage their
expenses. As a result, in many cases, both single mothers and their children need to work, which
create serious problems for future generation. The study emphasizes that the government needs to
increase the welfare and help them increase their abilities to empower them.
Acknowledgment
The present study was financially supported by a grant awarded by Islamic Azad University and the
author would like to thank the officials for the financial support.
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