Empowering Women via Social Safety Nets  and Service Delivery

Rozita Arshad

doi:10.32890/jgd2014.10.1.9

Authors

Rozita Arshad College of Law, Government and International Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32890/jgd2014.10.1.9

Keywords:

women, single mothers, social safety nets, service delivery

Abstract

Social safety Nets (SSNs) are the form of government intervention to assist the â€œneedyâ€ groups including the single mothers. SSNs should be established as a mechanism that can be used to alleviate poverty, especially among single mothers. However, the barrier that restricts SSNs as mechanism to improve the quality of life for single mothers is a failure of service delivery functions. The single mothers can be empowered through good delivery system of SSNs because it can support their social development. Basically, SSNs is used as short term supporting system to generate independent nature of life and consciousness among women (single mothers). Thus this study aims to identify the delivery of SSNs services or assistance to single mothers that they received and the problems they faced. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with four selected single mothers in different districts in Perlis. The result indicates that they are in need of the SSNs to support their single motherhood. While SSNs are available to the single mothers, it is hindered either by inefficient delivery system and/or their personal constraints.

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As mentioned by Evans (2011:2), the term of single mother in Malaysia, however has been expanded by the policy makers to include women who continue to live with their husbands but who are the primary earner due to ill-health, disability or substance and alcohol misuse. He argued that lack of clarity in defining single mothers is not just a major obstacle to good policy making but also to gain evidence and create measures relating to the causes and consequences of “single motherhood”. In most recent development, there is a motion from single mothers in Selangor to define a single mother as “woman who aged 18 years and above, a divorcee or a widow, a breadwinner in her family, a woman who stay far from her husband and a woman who is abandoned by her husband.”Rafidah Mat Ruzki, “Ibu tunggal saman MB Selangor”, Berita Harian, 23 November 2012, p.9.