THE VAST majority of lone parents - 84 per cent — are working, looking for work or engaged in education or training, according to a national poll of single parents in receipt of welfare benefits.
The survey of 1,600 single parents who receive the one-parent family payment shows that lone parents are a diverse group, ranging from older parents to foreign national single parents and male lone parents.
The report - Lone Parents and Employment: What are the Real Issues? - will be published today by One Family, a provider of family support services to one-parent families in Ireland.
It was funded by the Combat Poverty Agency and assisted by the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
Report author Candy Murphy, the research and policy manager with One Family, said the study highlighted a high level of motivation among lone parents on welfare benefits to participate in employment.
The findings also highlighted the need to find ways to support lone parents to pursue their career plans and to achieve sustainable employment, she said.
The report's findings come at a time when the Government is drawing up proposals to change the way the State provides welfare support to lone parents.
The reforms will oblige single parents to be available for work when the youngest child reaches a certain age, which has yet to be specified.
The move is part of an international trend towards greater "avtivation", or engagement in the labour force, of people of working age who are reliant on welfare. Ms Murphy called on the Government to ensure such measures are voluntary and accompanied by supports, such as affordable childcare and the removal of "poverty traps".
"We strongly recommend that this activation process be voluntary, building on the strong motivation to work found in the study and accompanied by a package of supports, as is the situation in other countries that have adopted a similar approach," she said.
"These supports must include greater access to affordable, quality childcare for lone parents, the removal of the rent supplement poverty trap and support for greater access to education, training and qualifications, in order to succeed."
The chief executive of the UK-based one-parent family organisation Gingerbread, UK, Fiona Weir, said similar proposals for compulsory activation in Britain were being strongly opposed until the proper supports were in place.
"The imminent welfare reform changes in the UK will pile pressure on lone parents at a time when the labour market is creaking under the strain of growing unemployment. This is the wrong policy at the wrong time and it is lone parents and their children who will lose out," she said.
"I would hope that the Irish Government will not go down this route but will rather engage in a positive way to support lone parents in moving into sustainable employment"
