Estonia's Singularity: Single Mothers
Marking International Women's Day, Eurostat released a report concluding that Estonia has a higher percentage of single mothers - 7 percent - than any other EU nation.
The number of single men raising children is the second highest in the EU, falling 0.1 percent short of Lithuania's 1.0 percent.
Estonia's abundance of single mothers is followed by the the UK, Ireland, Latvia and Lithuania. In EU countries, there are seven times more single mothers than single fathers, with the average ratio of single motherhood being 3.7 percent.
Twenty-three percent of Estonian couples - that is, those living together regardless of legal status - have children. Eurostat concluded that the employment rate decreases for women as the number of children increases; the trend is the opposite for men. In 2009, the employment rate was 81.6 percent for Estonian women with no children; 77.6 for women with one child; and 70 percent for women with two children. The respective EU averages were 75.8 percent, 71.3 percent and 69.2 percent.
University of Tartu sociologist Mare Ainsaar told uudised.err.ee that most single mothers weren't single when their babies were born but that in Estonia, finding a new partner tends to be a long-drawn-out process compared for example to Sweden, where splitting up is also very common.
Yet Ainsaar said the impact of single-parent families may not be damaging for society, while conceding that single parents have a tougher time financially. "That men or women bring up children by themselves, is not necessarily bad in itself. Some studies show that these children are very successful," said Ainsaar.
Ott Tammik