Social Studies Sba k734h

.

Name of Candidate: Jerilee Watts School:

Lacovia High School

Teacher:

Ms. Tomlinson

Subject:

Social Studies

Territory:

Jamaica

Center Number:

Female headed single parent families – its advantages and disadvantages on the community of Beadle Dr Santa Cruz St. Elizabeth

TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgement Introduction Task One Statement of the Problem Aims and Objectives Task Two Method of Investigation Task Three Questionnaire Task Four Procedure Used to Collect Data Task Five and Six Presentation and Explanation of Data Task Seven Interpretation of Data Task Eight Findings Task Nine Recommendations

Acknowledgement

Without the assistance of a number of people, the completion of this study would not be possible, so I would like to thank all the respondents to the questionnaire for their time, patience and co-operation during the course of this study. I would also like to thank my mother for being my driving force throughout this study and a special thanks goes out to my friend Andrea Powell who was there every step of the way while we were issuing and recollecting the questionnaires and lastly I would like to thank my teacher Miss. Tomlinson for providing me with the guidance in the completion of this study.

Introduction

A single parent family is a situation in which “only one parent is living with his/her child or children”. Unemployment “refers to a situation where a person is in the labour force, is capab;le and willing to work, but has not yet found a job”. The defined are the two key of the study and are what this study will be based upon. Single parent families are very prominent situations in Jamaican society as, in many households there is only one parent this parent usually being the mother, because one parent is missing for reason or the other. Like many other communities similar to Beadle’s Drive, society view these areas as “ghettos” (which I personally believe is a state of mind), the single parent family is a highly dominant one. The main issue plaguing these families is that a large number of these single parents are unemployed, so u may ask two questions: Firstly, what are the effects of these situations on the family as a whole? The answer to that question is that the effects are largely negative. The next question you may ask is, how do these families cope with the effects of unemployment? This is why I believe it is clause able to carry out this study. The community of Beadle’s Drive is located in St. Elizabeth just a two minute drive to Santa Cruz. Sitting on 26 acres of land the community is

comprised of approximately 85 houses. I think that in order to gather substantial information on the topic at hand a total of around 50-55 female headed unemployed single parent households have to be visited ( that not all 85 households are female headed single parent unemployed).

I have been a member of the Beadle’s Drive community for almost five years and over these years I have noticed that many of my friends and people who I know are a part of single parent family households, with the only parent in the family usually being the mother and majority of these mothers are unemployed. From time to time these mothers do get jobs but just stop working or get laid off for one reason or another. In this community teen pregnancy and negligent fathers are also at a high rate, setting the stage for the continuation of the trends of single parent households and unemployment.

Problem Statement What are the effects of unemployment female headed single parent families of Beadle’s Drive?

Aims and Objectives  

To explain the main cause of unemployment among these families To determine the impact which these situations have on the child/ren



of these families To identify the strategies used by these families to cope with unemployment

Statement of the Method of Investigation The instrument used to collect the data for this study was the questionnaire. Being that this is a primary study the best method which I thought could be used was the questionnaire as it has many advantages, such as: it does not take a long time to complete, it is very convenient to the respondents as it can be completed at any time and it is highly confidential as respondents identities are not required.

Method of Data Collection Beadle’s Drive sits on 26 acres of land, comprising of a total of 85 households. A total of 25 questionnaires would have been prepared for distribution to supply substantial data for the study .Fortunately I was able to print the projected 50 copies for the study and with aid from a friend I was able to distribute all 50 copies of the questionnaire. The respondents to the questionnaires were not picked in any particular way; I just selected the women which I thought would be most cooperative in the completion of the questionnaire. However at least seven questionnaires were distributed on each terrace in the community and we ensured that the questionnaires were issued evenly to women off different ages, we tried to at least give a questionnaire to the age groups which were on question one of the questionnaire. All the respondents selected were all at home when

vsited.It was projected that around 20 questionnaires would be returned as some of these women would neglect these questionnaires, lose them for some reason or the other, or just not complete them over the time allotted. After the respondents were given one day in which to complete the questionnaire from December 17th to December 18th, my friend and I collected them on the 19th December 2010 of the 25 questionnaires 23 were returned 3 more than was projected.

Description and Analyses of Data The main cause of unemployment, as seen in figure 1 is that many of these respondents did not finish school. This mainly because they got pregnant while they were in school this represented by figure 3. This shows the ages of respondents when they had their first child, of this 44% of the respondents had their first child between the ages of 13-19(age of schooling), making unfinished schooling the main cause of unemployment among these individuals. The other causes making up the chart are that are they were not able at a lack of higher education ing for 33% of the chart, many of these respondents originate from poor backgrounds so they were not able to

pursue their education at a higher level because of a lack of funds. The third reason highlighted by the respondents is plain simple; some the respondents just do not want to work. From my observation I have seen where some o these respondents are comfortable with their lifestyle therefore resort to just being lazy., the forth reason is Jamaican work system which I feel is no cause but it makes up 10%manyof these respondents have the attitude of blaming everything on the government and the organization of the society therefore this is why you find these respondents blaming their unemployment on the system. Lastly other reasons made up the remaining percentage of the chart. (example located in presentation of data; description of figure 1) All respondents highlighted that they still gain funds even though they are unemployed.figure2 depicts the methods used by these respondents to gain aid. Unfortunately most of these women depicted in the pie chart, use the negative practice of gambling to gain money which is one of the big negative effects of these single mothers being unemployed, as while I was researching the topic at hand it came to my attention that gambling often times lead to the loss of valuable funds needed to the family. Second to the gambling factor is that these respondents receive aid both from family locally and overseas. Locally ed for 15% of the chart but overseas played a more significant role maybe because of the exchange rate and other factors. The other methods may aid these mothers to some extent but are not very dependable so the most viable means of these mothers to their families is to get employed. I

strongly believe that these aids play a factor in establishing why the majority these respondents have been unemployed for over such a long period of time. Table I depicts how long these respondents unemployed 35% of them have been unemployed for over ten years and this is really an appalling figure. Depicted in figure4 the very respondent unanimously highlighted that the effect of their situation on the children is largely negative. with 58% of the respondents stating that their child/ren are more negatively impacted by unemployment, 29%say it gives their children a positive drive in a sense to say that their children are viewing them as parents and saying that they will not end up like their parents so it gives them a boost and they will strive to survive in life. Thirdly 9 of the respondents stated that their situation had no effect on their children as they see no changes in their children’s behavior; ect. Lastly 4% of the respondents were unsure towards the relationship between their situation and their children. However based on my point of view I believe that the effects rightly stated by a majority of the respondents that their situation definitely impacts their children, clearly seen in table 2 majority of the respondents can only afford to send the child/children to school three times for the week this is really negative, if you calculate how many days this child would be absent from school for the year he/she would be missing a lot of lessons, so this cannot be good on the child’s part.

Figure 3

Figure 3 is the representation of the percentage of the age respondents had their first child. The age group 13-19 ed for 44% of the chart, the age group 2026 made up 29% of the chart, the age group27-33 made up 27% of the chart and 34 and older did not for any percentage of the chart.

Figure 4

Figure 4 represents the effect which unemployment has on the children of these families. Respondents which said the effect of unemployment on their children is largely negative ed for 58%, the positive effect gained 29% of the responses, while the respondents chose responses of no effect and not sure 9% and 4% respectively.

Interpretation of Data Of the respondents some of them refused to work but those were willing to work; there were impediments which were blocking these respondents from gaining employment. Of the respondents 44% were not able to gain employment because they were unable to finish school. Based on the data collected the root cause of these respondents being unable to finish school was that many got pregnant while they were in school, as 44% of the respondents had their first child between the ages of 13-19 years old. As a result of being unable to gain employment, the respondents had to rely and other sources to aid with the supply of basic needs (figure 2). The most popular of these alternate sources was that these respondents chose to try their luck with cash pot and other gambling mediums, which ed for 40%. Family living overseas was next best source, gaining 36%, based on the data collected this is because the respondents believe that they would be more than likely able to acquire the aid from this source and that they would be more than likely able to acquire the aid from this source and that they would acquire more funds from these sources being that it would be foreign exchange. Rather than local family who gained 20%.Fourth on the chart was to gain aid from churches and friends. Why this was second lowest on the chart, based on observations done it was seen that the majority of these friends are unemployed and majority of the respondents do not want to go to the church for aid because they feel that the church will offer them god’s word rather than tangible aid meaning that

they (the church) would be more likely to tell them that God will supply their needs rather than giving them some money or some food. Last on the chart were other means of acquiring aid which was a mere 4%.

Findings Conducting this study was no easy task, but it has brought to my attention a few good and bad attitudes towards being employed in the community of Beadle Drive Santa Cruz these include: Firstly the effects of these unemployment situations affect both the mothers and the children of these families it is not a one sided affair as is clearly proven by the data. Especially in the children in their education, Children are not responsible for themselves so therefore depending on what little economic aid these families gain, determines how often children go to school among other effects. Secondly these effects are largely more negative than positive and this is not just bad for these families but society as a whole as this can increase the dependency ratio and halt the development of the country. The next thing that I have found out is that these individuals have become so caught up in the lifestyle of acquiring alternate aid, they have fallen into a comfort zone and have become extremely lazy. This I believe is the cause of such a high unemployment rate in the country as according to Encarta Encyclopedia 2009”the unemployment rate in Jamaica is in excess of 11%.”

One other thing that I have found out is that in this situation children are more vulnerable to the negative impacts rather than the positives, even the majority of the respondents’ agreed that this is the case as seen in Figure 4. As for the children which are the most vulnerable in these situations, Figure 4 shows how respondents believe that their situation affects their child/children of these respondents 58% said that this is that most of the respondents are wise and honest enough to know and it that their situation cannot be healthy for their child/children’s’ moral upbringing and values.

Recommendation In one of the previous sections of this study data was presented on a question from the questionnaire, which asks respondents at what age they got pregnant with their first child. Forty four percent of respondents stated that they got pregnant between the ages of 13-19, this is usually the period of time which these respondents are in High School, getting pregnant while in school would force them to drop out of school and being unable to complete their secondary education, therefore not able to finish school ed for a large percentage from data of a next question asked; What do u think is your cause of unemployment. Seeing that being unable to finish school is such a major cause of unemployment among respondents my recommendation is to set up a system which caters for young girls who get pregnant while they are still in school, Implement a program especially for them something like a school or class to reduce the problem from the main cause, so that they can still be taught while they are pregnant and after they have given birth, because as the data shows being unable to finish school because of early pregnancy was the main cause of unemployment. You would have the school to either teach

these girls necessary the necessary skills needed for the working world or you would get teachers to continue teaching them what they were being taught in school so u would split them up by age group into different classes for different classes for different stages of teaching. You would make this class free of charge because a large amount of these respondents do not have the financial aid to a school. You would give the girls the option to either go back to school after they have given birth or continue with the school until they have finished the course. You would however not just teach these girls academics but also how to take care of their babies because many of them being their first child would not know how to properly take care of baby .This school would indeed be successful as I believe a significant portion of these girls would be willing to go back to school and catch up back with their school life and the opportunity of being a second chance at life would indeed motivate them to attend school, I also believe it would be successful because these girls after finishing the course would now be equipped with the necessary skills for life, in order to acquire employment.

Table showing how many years respondents have been unemployed and the percentage of respondents between the years of unemployment Years of Unemployment Under 1 Year 2-5 Years 6-10 Years Over 10 Years

Percentage of Respondents 17% 21% 27% 35% Table 1

Table 1 is the length of unemployment among the respondents 17% of the respondents have been unemployed under a year,21% have been unemployed for 2-5 years,35% of the respondents have been unemployed for 6-10 years and 27% of the respondents have been unemployed for over 10 years.

Table showing the percentage of how often respondents can afford to give their child/children lunch money to attend school Times per week respondents can afford to give their child/children lunch money to attend school 1 time per week 2 times per week 3 times per week 4 times per week 5 times per week

Percentage

3% 9% 55% 2% 31% Table 2

Table 2 is showing how often respondents can afford to give their child/children lunch money to attend school 3% of the respondents said they could only afford it once per week,9% said two times per week,55% said three times per week,2% said four times per week and 31% said five times per week.

Presentation and Explanation of Data

Figure 1

Figure 1 depicts the reasons respondents are unemployed. It can be seen that 44% did not finish school, 33% were hampered by a lack of higher education, 10% blamed the Jamaican work system, 8% just desired not to work and 5% of the respondents pointed out that there were other reasons for their unemployment for example one respondent pointed out that she was unable to seek employment because she had too many young children to take care of therefore she had no time to work.

Figure 2

Figure 2 shows the alternate sources of income for the respondents as a result of them not being able to get a job. Cash pot and other gambling mediums garnered 40%, Aid from family living overseas gained 36%, Aid from local family gained 20% and Aid from the church gained 4%