An exploration of the social-emotional development of single parenting: a comparison between Chinese and British mothers

This cross-cultural study aims to explore and compare parental support for single mothers in China and the UK, identifying how differences affect single parenting experiences and children’s social-emotional development between the countries. Previous studies that focused on single-mother families have examined economic and social networks, mental health, and childrearing. However, few studies compare single motherhood between these two countries. Therefore, this study attempts to fill this gap by making a theoretical-empirical contribution to understanding structural changes in contemporary families. I combined Bowlby’s attachment theory and Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, capital and field to develop a more comprehensive theoretical framework, a psycho-social study exploring how single-mother families and children’s development are affected by the interactions between individuals and structures, inner psychological processes and outer social factors. A psycho-social approach was therefore employed, utilising pre-pilot focus group interviews and free-association narrative interviews (FANI), interviewing twelve single mothers from China and the UK (six on each side). Thematic analysis was then used to identify important themes. I discovered that British participants have a wider range of support compared to Chinese participants when needed. Chinese mothers mainly receive support from families, but institutional support is the main support for British mothers, even more important than family support. Insufficient institutional support, along with the traditional culture of familialism, leads to Chinese mothers’ higher levels of anxiety and stress compared to their counterparts. However, both Chinese and British mothers find themselves in a dilemma due to emotional and responsibility overload. The changing mother-father-child dynamic negatively affected children’s social-emotional development. Children developed a more sophisticated emotional repertoire and interpersonal skills than their peers due to their exposure to complex family situations. Participants attempted to be “good enough” mothers to break the intergenerational transmission pattern of negative childhood experiences and the mechanism of “identification with the aggressor”.