Single Mothers—Clients or Citizens? Social Work with Poor Families in Russia

P. 207–230.

Iarskaia-Smirnova E. R., Romanov P.

In this chapter we aim to examine the discourses created and reproduced through the interaction between single mothers and representatives of social services. The analysis is based on twenty-six interviews with single mothers and six interviews with social workers conducted in 2001–2003, and six interviews with single mothers and three with social workers conducted in 2006 in the Saratov region in Russia, as well as official documents and the publications of other researchers. In our interviews with mothers, we focused on the issues of familial well-being and interactions with social services, while social workers were asked to discuss their experiences with clients. A short overview of statistics and social policy terminology prefaces a discussion of how mother-headed families and state social policy interrelate and affect each other. The subsequent sections contain analysis of the interviews with single mothers who, as the heads of low-income households, interact with the social service system. The analysis demonstrates that single mothers are frustrated by inadequate assistance and the impossibility of improving their life situations. The discussion goes on to show that social workers, who are used to interpreting complex issues in the life situations of single mothers as individual psychological peculiarities, tend to blame the victim, thus ignoring important social conditions and imposing on women a responsibility for problems that are societal in origin.

Keywords: социальная политика, семья, social policy, family, социальные службы, single mothers, social services, social workers, социальные работники, одинокие матери

In book

And They Lived Happily Ever After. Norms and Everyday Practices of Parenthood in Russia and Eastern Europe

Budapest: CEU Press, 2012.