The Combination of School and Work among Adolescent Children as a Household Strategy of Lone Mothers in Mexico

Silvia Elena Giorguli Saucedo, El Colegio de México
Carlos J. Echarri Canovas, El Colegio de México

There are divergent arguments regarding the impact of the absence of the father on children’s well-being. On one side, lone mothers have greater autonomy regarding the decision of how to use resources within the household which should benefit children given that mothers tend to be more child-oriented. On the other, the absence of the father from the household is related to a lower access to socioeconomic resources and social capital. For the Mexican case, our research shows that in households where only the mother is present, adolescents have the same probabilities of attending school and higher probabilities of working than children in dual parental households. Children of lone mothers may be combining school and work as a household strategy to cover the need of extra income with the lowest impact possible on their educational opportunities.