Abstract
Drawing on interviews with thirty-nine single mothers living in a rural area, this paper describes the relationships of support between single mothers and those on whom they rely for assistance in daily living, and explores the extent to which these relationships are based on expectations of reciprocity. After a description of the setting and methods, this article is divided into two sections. The first section argues that single mothers hold most tightly to a narrow norm of balanced reciprocity of material goods and services in their relationships with others in similar situations, but that they stretch that norm as they broaden their support networks outward to those they view as being more fortunate than themselves. In the second section, the work involved in maintaining relationships of dependence and mutuality is analyzed.
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Nelson, M.K. Single Mothers and Social Support: The Commitment to, and Retreat from, Reciprocity. Qualitative Sociology 23, 291–317 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005567910606
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005567910606