Together with Laurie Maldonado, I’ll be coordinating a stream on single parents at the upcoming ESPAnet conference (September 3-5, 2015, Odense, Denmark). Although as stream organizers we do not make the final decision on accepting papers to be presented (nor on how many papers will be accepted). However, we very much hope that interested scholars consider submitting an abstract, or might forward this call to interested collaborators. We hope to bring together a group of experts on the nexus of social policy and single parents.

From the call for papers:

The Social Policy Context of Single-Parent Families

This stream will focus on single-parent families and the ways in which these families are affected by social policy across European countries and beyond. We invite invite theory-driven empirical studies on social policies that affect single-parent families. We specifically invite papers that address:

Social Policy Outcomes: descriptions and analyses of how social policies affect single-parent families. What are the various policy arrangements for single-parent families? Do single?parent families benefit more from universal welfare state policies, or from policies targeted on specific needs of such families?

Social Policy Responses: descriptions and analyses of social policy innovations focused on single-parent families. What social policies are adopted for single-parent families, and how are these policies debated? What are the determinants of (EU member) states adopting policies? Is there a trend towards targeting or universalism? How does Social Investment translate to policies for single-parent families?

The complete call for papers is available online.
Abstracts will be submitted to the conference organisers. Instructions and deadline will appear on the conference website shortly:

Please do not hesitate to leave a comment below, or contact me at rense.nieuwenhuis@sofi.su.se, if you have any further questions.