Abstract
This paper will deal with lone mothers and their labor market participation. Lone motherhood, that we will define, implies to be worker and care giver at the same time. It is thus interesting to see if the Welfare States help them by giving them the choice to be care givers or workers or if they oblige them to play a defined role (care giver or worker) by structural constraints, and how they support them. We will focus on three countries (Norway, France and the United Kingdom) and see that lone motherhood is seen differently in these countries leading to different kinds of policies. However, the problems that remain are the lack of available childcare institutions and the discriminations in the labor market. It is thus in this direction that politicians have to turn their future policies. Furthermore, a more precise definition of the work line/caring line has to be done, to determine if and when lone mothers must work.
