A “single-parent family” card after the “large family” card? During a press conference this Thursday, March 28, the Senate women’s rights delegation proposed testing a “single-parent family” card system. This card, optional and renewable each year, would provide advantages and preferential rates for low-income single-parent families.
It would provide access to certain services and benefits (school cafeteria, public and collective transportation, leisure activities, summer camps, extracurricular activities, sports and cultural activities, mutual insurance) at lower prices.
82% of single-parent families are women.
This proposal is one of the ten recommendations concluded by a report by senators Colombe Brossel (socialist, environmentalist and republican group) and Béatrice Gosselin (affiliated with Les Républicains) to better support and accompany “single” parents.
The two senators interviewed institutions, associations and concerned parents for three months to identify the difficulties encountered by single-parent families.
One in four families in France is single-parent, with a woman at the head in 82% of cases, the document recalls. According to INSEE, poverty affects 45% of children who live alone with their mother.
In their report, the senators also highlight the economic fragility of these families.
“15% of single-parent families who are eligible, do not benefit from RSA, nor from the placement of family members (187.24 euros for both children and children, in case of failure of other parents”), pointe le relationship.
The latter strongly recommends communication campaigns on access to rights.
Identify these families
Unlike the version for “large families”, this card would also be “a means for single-parent families to inform themselves as such” to the administrations or their employers.
During the hearings, some employers indicated that they wanted to offer more flexible arrangements to their single-parent employees (more flexible hours, teleworking, etc.), but did not know exactly how to identify them.
The Minister of Equality between Women and Men, Aurore Bergé, recently supported the idea of such a “card” to improve the “more specific recognition we owe to single-parent families.”
A current report to the Assembly
The mission also addresses the issue of alimony “which is not paid in almost a third of cases.” It recommends “more ambitious targets to reduce default rates” and considers the option of “withholding taxes at source if these targets are not achieved.”
Among other proposals in the report, senators mention a review of social assistance to correct several inconsistencies. In particular, the risk of a drop in resources when the parent resumes a relationship, due to the elimination of certain social benefits. Therefore, the report suggests experimenting with a “temporary maintenance” of the family support allowance (ASF) in the event of a new association.
Since the beginning of March, two parliamentarians have also been working on the issue of single-parent families, under Matignon’s mandate. On the same issue, socialist deputy Philippe Brun launched a transpartisan group in the National Assembly in October to reach a bill in the first half of the year.
Source: BFM TV
