Today, the day after Women’s Day, I focus on a sub-group that tends to fly under the radar and that needs all the support it can get from society and the state: single mothers.
Most single moms have to juggle the roles of being both breadwinner and caregiver to their children, which is a huge burden for anyone to bear and puts them under enormous financial stress.
There are more female-headed households than you probably realise. According to Statistics SA’s General Household Survey 2022 and its Marginalised Groups Indicator Report 2022:
- 42.2% of South African households are headed by women.
- A similarly large proportion of South Africa’s children (44.1%) live with their mothers only. A third (32.7%) live with both parents; 19.5% live with neither of their parents; and 3.7% live with their fathers.
More worrying statistics come from the annual Old Mutual Savings and Investment Monitor, which tracks the fortunes of this sub-group. This year, surveying 1 508 urban working South Africans, the study found that:
- 40% of women identified as single mothers.
- Almost half (46%) of the single mothers said they received no financial support from their children’s fathers; 26% said they received support irregularly; and 29% said they received support regularly.
- 49% of single mothers reported feeling “high” or “overwhelming” financial stress compared with 39% of women overall, and 34% of men. In other words, one out of two single moms are under severe strain trying to cope financially.
If almost half of single mothers are not receiving paternal support and another quarter receiving it only “now and then”, it means three-quarters of the fathers of the children in these single-mother households are not complying with their parental obligations under the Children’s Act or the Maintenance Act. That is shocking.
Maintenance obligations
The Maintenance Act states that “it is the duty of parents to support their children… A maintenance order for the maintenance of a child is directed at the enforcement of the common law duty of the child’s parents to support that child… (This) extends to such support as a child reasonably requires for his or her proper living and upbringing, and includes the provision of food, clothing, accommodation, medical care, and education. The duty exists, irrespective of whether a child is born in or out of wedlock or is born of a first or subsequent marriage”.
Despite the law being fully on the side of single mothers needing financial support from their children’s fathers, the process of claiming maintenance and going back to court when defaulting fathers fail to pay up is a daunting one. “Giving up” on claiming maintenance is no doubt a major reason the statistics cited above are so appalling.
Single moms in this position should take inspiration from a case I reported on a while ago.
In October, last year about a year after a woman, MO, had filed for divorce, the Western Cape High Court ordered her ex-husband, RO, to pay maintenance of R18 000 a month to her and their three minor children from November 1, 2023.
Two weeks later, after not receiving anything, MO applied for RO to be held in contempt of court. The court ordered that RO pay maintenance arrears and other costs for which he was liable, amounting to about R31 000, within 10 days.
When RO again failed to pay up, MO went back to the court, asking that her ex-husband’s benefits in his retirement annuity be attached to settle the arrears.
In making her decision, Judge Constance Nziweni relied on provisions of the Maintenance Act and the Pension Funds Act that allow access to savings in a retirement fund to offset maintenance obligations. She ordered the fund to pay R29 000 from RO’s retirement benefits to settle the maintenance arrears.
Defaulting fathers take note: the court can come after your retirement savings. It can also order maintenance payments to be deducted directly from your salary through an emoluments attachment order.
Where to turn
Each magistrate’s court has a maintenance court division at which single moms can apply for child maintenance and to which they can turn for maintenance orders to be enforced. These are free services offered by the state – you don’t pay to apply or claim.
For a comprehensive guide to the maintenance courts and how to claim, watch the presentation by family law expert Robyn Siebers from STBB, “A practical guide to the maintenance courts” on the STBB Legally Speaking YouTube channel.
* Hesse is the former editor of Personal Finance.
PERSONAL FINANCE