_thefacts | stretch.com.au

In June 2024 there were 740,900 single parent families with dependent children aged 0-24 years and 560,200 single parent families with dependent children aged 0 to 14. Single parent families make up 1 in 5 of all families with dependent children in Australia today. (Labour Force Status of Families, June 2024 | Australian Bureau of Statistics).

Nearly 8 in 10 (78%) of them were headed by mothers. (Labour Force Status of Families, June 2024 | Australian Bureau of Statistics). More than 9 in 10 (94%) of the poorest single parents (those relying on Parenting Payment Single) are mothers.

There were more than 1.2 million dependent children aged 0-24 living in single parent families in June 2024. The majority of these were children aged under 15 years – 919,000 or 74%. (Labour Force Status of Families, June 2024 | Australian Bureau of Statistics).

Two in three single mothers are in paid employment, in addition to their solo unpaid care responsibilities. (Labour Force Status of Families, June 2024 | Australian Bureau of Statistics).

85% of the care and support workforce are women (2025-26 Women’s Budget Statement based on 2021 Census data).

Data from the child support scheme affecting around 1 million children confirms that post-separation care is very much undertaken by mothers. In June 2024, only 14% of care arrangements were defined as shared care, meaning between 35-65% of the year.(Child Support Program Data, June 2024).

The 2024 HILDA Report finds single parent families have the highest rates of housing stress of all family types including single people and couple families (22% compared to 6.9% for couples with dependent children). It also finds single parent families face the highest rates of poverty, material deprivation and financial stress (see also Life for single-parent families in Australia is harsh).

The rate of poverty in single parent households with children (33%) is more than three times that for couple family households (10%), when poverty is defined as living below 50% of median household income. Rates for severe and extreme poverty were also much higher according to analysis undertaken by Bankwest Curtain Economics Centre, (Child poverty in Australia 2024).

Single parents are more likely to be low-income renters, those who have experienced the largest increases in rents. Lower quartile rents increased by nearly 18% in 2021 and 2022 compared with just over 11% on average. (Child poverty in Australia 2024). Despite welcome, modest increases in Commonwealth Rent Assistance in the last two Budgets, the gap between rents and this assistance remains wide. In December 2024, a single parent with two children was paying $390 a week in rent and receiving $106 in rent assistance – a gap of $274 a week. (DSS Demographics December 2024).

In December 2024, 87% of single parents reliant on Parenting Payment Single were renting and the percentage who owned outright or were buying their own home had nearly halved from 21% in 2002 to 13% in 2024 (FACS Annual Report 2001-02 and DSS Demographics December 2024). For couples who need to sell the family when separating, future home ownership is much less likely for women than men. Only 44% of women had purchased a family home within 10 years of separating compared with 55% of men. (Analysis of HILDA data by Brendan Coates, The Grattan Institute).

According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, more than $5 billion was taken from single parent families due to the loss of Parenting Payment Single when their youngest child turned 8 years old between 2006-7 and 2018-19 alone (not including changes to family payments). This figure will be much higher when calculated to September 2023 when the policy was improved. Individually women lost on average at least $100 per week in payments plus more if they had earnings from paid employment due to the harsher income test of unemployment payments (2023 figures).

The increase in eligibility for Parenting Payment Single from September 2023 has meant around an additional 100,000 families can now access this increased support. While a significant improvement on JobSeeker Payment, this payment still leaves far too many single parent families and their children living in poverty. In 2019-20, ACOSS/UNSW found 72% of Parenting Payment Single recipients lived in poverty, the highest rate of all income support recipients, including those receiving JobSeeker payments.

The choice: violence or poverty published by Dr Anne Summers in 2022 confirmed single mothers had experienced a very high prevalence of physical or sexual violence by a partner– 60% compared to 17% of women more broadly. Drawing from the 2016 Personal Safety Survey, she found 185,700 of the 311,000 single mother respondents to the 2016 survey had experienced this violence since the age of 15.

In the financial year 2023-24, nearly 100,000 people received support from Centrelink social workers due to domestic violence, which provides an indicator of the scale of the issue.

Parenting Payment Single (328,000 recipients) is the most important income support payment for women and children leaving violence. The payment is particularly important for many First Nations families who face higher rates of violence and make up over 17% of Parenting Payment Single recipients. Since the welcome increase in eligibility for Parenting Payment Single from children turning 8 to 14 years, the number of single JobSeeker recipients with children has reduced to less than 24,000.

The Centrelink Crisis Payment provides only one week of income support and is restricted to applicants who were already receiving a Centrelink payment. In 2023-24 only 30,000 income support recipients received this payment due to domestic and family violence. In the same year nearly 100,000 people received support from Centrelink social workers due to domestic violence, indicating the inadequacy of the Crisis Payment. In July 2025, the Leaving Violence Program will replace the Escaping Violence Payment trial which has been in place since October 2021. It provides a one-off $1,500 in cash and $3,500 of in-kind support (goods and services or direct payments of bonds, school fees or other support to help establish a safe home) as well as safety planning, risk assessment and referrals to other essential services for up to 12 weeks.

Women who leave relationships experience around a 20% drop in household income but for single mothers who fled violence, the loss was 34%. Of the 185,700 single mothers who had previously experienced violence, 60% had struggled to pay for essentials in the 12 months before the 2016 survey. (The choice: violence or poverty, Dr Anne Summers, 2022).