PUBLIC POLICY VOLUME 5 NUMBER 1 2010 23 – 39 Understanding Single Mothers’ Choices Around Paid Work and Education: Preference theory versus a practices of mothering framework 23 Acknowledgements: I would like to thank The Centre for Social and Community Research, Murdoch University for helping to make this research possible through visiting fellowships and assistance with recruiting study participants. © 2010 Curtin University ISSN 1833-2110 Michelle Brady University of Alberta Within Australian social policy debates Catherine Hakim’s preference theory and closely rated theories about maternal identities have become prominent frameworks for understanding mothers’ decisions around paid work. These theories suggest that women have relatively static preferences regarding their labour force participation that are manifestations of their pre-existing identities as ‘mothers’ or ‘workers’ and that these will affect their labour force decisions much more profoundly than cultural, social or economic conditions. Drawing on ethnographic research with single mothers, this article argues that preference theory is an inadequate framework for understanding how they make choices around paid work. It suggests that a mothering practices framework has much more explanatory power. The mothering practices framework, which emphasizes that mothering is something that is practiced rather than something that one is, fits closely with single mothers’ narratives about their labour force decisions and plans. In contrast to identity theories, it illuminates the day to day material trade- offs involved in participation in education and paid work, as well as the reality that single mothers have differential access to family support and quality childcare. The relationship between single mothers’ identities and role preferences has become a prominent concern in Australian research and policy around mothering and paid work. One example of this is the increased engagement with Catherine Hakim’s preference theory, which suggests that mothers’ identities are constant and ‘intrinsic’, and that these identities are the most important influence on their level of workforce participation (2000). In this article I draw upon an ethnographic study involving 30 single mothers with young children living in Perth, Australia to argue that preference theory, particularly as it has been taken up within Australian research and policy debates, is an inadequate framework for understanding single mothers’ choices around paid work. Social policies and programs that proceed on the basis of understanding mothers’ choices through the framework of mothering identities or role identities miss many of the ways in which mothers negotiate the relationship between paid work and mothering. In particular, they miss the strong preference that many mothers have for a certain kind of childcare separate from their own preferences around paid work. In other words, many women have a preference for their children to be cared for only by a family member when the children are young. While some women have family members who are willing to provide this care, many mothers do not. Preference or identity based theories of women`s choices around children and paid work miss this point because they implicitly conflate preferences for certain forms of childcare with women’s wish to participate in paid work. Furthermore these theories gloss over, or ignore, important differences in the choices and constraints facing single and partnered mothers. In doing so they continue the overall tendency in the literature on the intersections of work, family and community to focus on high earning couples and pay less attention to low paid and single parents (Pocock, Williams et al. 2009).