Abstract

Joint with Eva Sierminska

We examine the economic well-being of single parents in a cross-national perspective and compare their wealth, income and education to that of other family types. Across twelve countries that represent various finance education systems (privately or publicly founded), we find similarities and differences in economic well-being as measured by wealth. In most countries, single parents possess less than 50% of the level of wealth in the hands of their coupled counterparts. Among homeowners, the wealth gaps between single- and couple-parent homeowners are smaller than the gaps between the overall population and renters. In most countries, income is positively correlated with wealth, whereas the correlation between education and wealth depends on the way the higher education system is financed. This indicates that public education may be seen as a policy tool for decreasing wealth inequality across single and dual parent households, since both the wealth as well as income inequalities (measured by the top 10% wealth share and Gini coefficient) are lower in these countries. Our estimation results suggest that, to be better off, single- parents would need to be homeowners not living in the United States, even if they are highly educated single parents at the bottom of the wealth distribution. Since single parents are often at the receiving end of social benefits, means-tested (not universal) benefits hamper their wealth accumulation.