Social Networks and the Health of Single Parents

Abstract

Over the past decades single parent households have become established in most OECD countries. Single parenting comes with specific risks: single parents bear a higher poverty risk and have worse mental and physical health than married parents. While the relevance of social relations and support for well-being and health has been widely documented, networkanalytical studies are rare in this field. However, they promise new insights into how social network structures, different types of relations and different kinds of interactions impact single parents’ health.