Lone mothers and welfare policies in Albania: Conditions, experiences, expectations, 1944-2013

This is an action research that endeavors to construct the category of ‘lone mothers’ in Albania, through their own voice, for the purpose of creating the socio-political discourse on their real needs they and their children have. It talks about lone mothers not as needy or vulnerable, but as women with power and agency, whose life circumstances and disadvantages have created inequality and exclusion from the rest of the society. I argue that lone mothers in Albania, are not born needy, but instead the non-responsibility of the biological fathers of their children, the socio-economic and political transitions Albania underwent after 1990, the internal and external migration flows and the lack of employment and low education impacts the disadvantaged situation they and their children face today.

This PhD research takes an interdisciplinary approach, at the crossroads of gender, family sociology and demography, welfare history, economic policy and international development.

The methodological and theoretical approach of this research is guided by different feminist and gender perspectives. I have researched Albanian lone mothers in two ways. I studied their position in the welfare state and society by the services they receive from the government and non-governmental actors. The identity construction of lone mothers is examined via historical research and personal narratives about the entrance into marriage or co-habitance, the route to lonely motherhood, the age factor when marrying and remaining alone, the age and number of children, the education level and labor participation, and the internal and external migration factor.

The study observes how they combined incomes provided by the state and non-state institutions, by family networks, and by the biological father of their children.

The welfare policies provided to lone mothers by the communist and post-communist government are observed and analyzed through gender lenses, which problematize the reconciliation policies in between caring and working regimes. The social programs provided to lone mothers by non-governmental actors (women organizations and religious institutions) argue on what services they provide different support compared to the government, and what gap of support perceived by lone mothers they seek to fill in.

This research contributes to lacking scholarship on lone mothers in Western-Balkans and ads to a larger European context the scholarship voice from Albania. The history of women NGOs in Albania seeks to reflect an overview on the first services provided as concern women`s rights in the country and the role international donors played in strengthening the civil and political rights over the socio-economic ones. The research opens the discourse on the role of the Albanian state and the international multilateral donors (European Union, United Nations Development Programme, World Bank) in prioritizing the provision of social and economic rights for lone mothers in the future Albania. As an invitation to the government and the non-governmental actors, this action research invites these national stakeholders in Albania to think and adopt reconciliation policies with focus on the caring aspect for working and non-working lone mothers.