Adapting to Biographical Uncertainty after the Transition to Lone Parenthood: Future Projections and the Multidimensionality of the Life Course

Núria Sánchez Mira , Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lausanne
Laura Bernardi, University of Lausanne
Benjamin Moles-Kalt, University of Lausanne

This paper investigates how individuals with an experience of lone parenthood adapt to the changing life conditions and related biographical uncertainty over subsequent life course transitions. These adaptations involve shifts in the time horizons of plans and expectations, as given life domains take priority over others. We are specifically interested in analysing the parents’ projections of the future in multiple life domains (partnership, employment, children care and education, social participation, residence, among others) and how different temporalities act simultaneously on how such domains are perceived and prioritized. The paper draws on empirical data from the five waves of the qualitative panel ‘The multiple paths of lone parenthood’, which has been studying the life trajectories and experiences of lone-parent families in French-speaking Switzerland for ten years. The project initially interviewed forty parents who were in a situation of lone parenthood in 2012–2013 – that is, who had sole or primary physical custody of their children, and has followed up these families at 2-year intervals since then, with the fifth wave of fieldwork starting in October 2021. These longitudinal data offer a unique opportunity to analyse the subsequent (family) biography and how individuals anticipated, directed or accepted it as they coped and adapted to stressors. We look specifically at the links between the changes in different life domains to adapt to shifting and uncertain conditions and the ability to project oneself into the future, the shorter or longer time frames of these projections, and which aspects are prioritized at different moments over the trajectory.

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 Presented in Session 58. Childlessness and parenthood in the life course