While more mothers have been participating in the paid workforce over recent years, the employment rate of lone mothers remains lower than that of couple mothers. Concerns about the wellbeing of adults and children living in jobless households contribute to continuing interest in explaining the relatively low employment rate of lone mothers.

This paper provides new insights into possible reasons for the different rates of employment of lone and couple mothers by examining how their employment transitions vary. A focus on transitions enables us to examine whether the lower employment rate of lone mothers is due to their being less likely to enter employment, more likely to exit employment once employed, or a combination of both.

Monthly calendar data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey are used to identify and compare the rate at which lone and couple mothers move into and out of employment over a seven-year period. These data show that in any one-month period, lone mothers are less likely to be employed than couple mothers. Of those employed in a one-month period, lone mothers are more likely to transition out of employment than couple mothers; however, not-employed lone and couple mothers are no different in their likelihood of transition into employment. The analyses also consider the extent to which a selection of factors other than lone parenthood differentiate mothers in their employment transition rates. These analyses show that educational attainment, work history and age of youngest child may influence, in part, the different employment transition rates of lone and couple mothers.