Gallwey, April (2011) Lone motherhood in England, 1945–1990 : economy, agency and identity. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis examines the history of lone motherhood in England between 1945 and 1990.
Most studies of lone motherhood after 1945 have focused on unmarried women, but this
study looks at all routes into lone motherhood: pre-marital pregnancy, separation,
divorce and widowhood. Existing research on post-1945 history has tended to prioritise
the role of the state in determining demographic trends in family life and behaviour. This
thesis uses oral history evidence to demonstrate how women’s agency shaped routes into
lone motherhood as well as their management of female-headed household economies
and their sense of identity within the post-war welfare state. A sample of fifty oral history
interviews, primarily selected from the Millennium Memory Bank at the National Sound
Archive forms the basis of the thesis. Interviewees are predominantly working-class and
from urban locations across all regions of England. The sample is divided into five
generational cohorts, which span the immediate post-war period, 1950s, 1960s 1970s and
1980s. Childhood, adolescent and marital experiences are analysed within each cohort in
order to understand changes and continuities in women’s entrance into lone
motherhood. In addition, contemporary sociological sources are discussed alongside the
oral histories in order to understand the relationship between the sociological
construction of lone motherhood and lone mothers’ developing social identities in the
post-war period. Three categories of analysis in relation to the experience of lone
motherhood feature: ‘Accommodation and Housing,’ ‘Maternal Economy’ and ‘Social
Membership and Identity.’ The study concludes that women’s greater entrance into lone
motherhood after 1970 was driven by their rejection of an untenable social and
economic division of labour in marriage, which remained consistent across our period.
The development of sociological classification in relation to one parent families in the
1960s is demonstrated to have been taken-up by women from the 1970s onwards to
legitimize their entitlement to state assistance and housing. This entitlement is also
argued to have rested on an inter-generational maternal identity that understood the
importance of maternity and the false demarcation between waged and domestic labour,
which working-class women, inside and outside of marriage, confronted across the
twentieth-century.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Single mothers -- England -- History -- 20th century
Official Date:	September 2011
Dates:	Date Event September 2011 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of History
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Thomson, Mathew ; Todd, Selina
Sponsors:	University of Warwick
Extent:	305 leaves
Language:	eng
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/49986

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