Social determinants of health in women who support single-parent families after divorce or separation

Abstract

The global structural changes in the family include the diversification and dynamics of its typologies, whose most notable feature is the high level of growth of single-parent families and, within these, that of families generated by the breakdown of marriages and consensual unions, mostly led by mothers. In the social imagination and even metamorphosed in the state of art, there are still patriarchal prejudices based on the supposed inability of mother to support its families. All of this in a social environment of socioeconomic inequalities that limits these mothers access to economic resources and opportunities for educational-cultural improvement, which is necessary to achieve success in family functions and to resolve conflicts between its members, and between them and the environment. Consequently, the expression of these prejudices in social practice causes damages to the health of the mothers overloaded with roles who lead these families, and their remaining members. The objective of the article is to critically assess, based on the process of the health-disease relationship and from a gender perspective, the impact of social determinants (economic, cultural, psychosocial e ideological) on the health of mothers who support single-parent families arising after divorce or separation.