The aim of the project is to map the living conditions, well-being, agency, and resiliency of single-parent households in Slovakia. These are headed not only by the members of the majority population, but also by the female refugees from Ukraine. The refugee population has been included because in the following years, further waves of refugees in Europe can be expected due to war conflicts and climate change. Additionally, intersectionality of single-parenting and the refugee status is insufficiently studied.

Single parent families are at risk of inadequate resources (lack of income, time needed to take care of family and household, and flexibility), poor employment (low income and precarious conditions) and insufficient policies (to ensure sufficient standard of living for children), which are all interconnected. To enrich international research, intersectional aspects such as gender, refugee status and geographical location will be taken into consideration.

In order to address these issues, we will incorporate several research methods:

• in-depth descriptive demographic analyses focusing on the situation of Slovak single-parent households and combining various existing datasets;
• an original quantitative survey of Slovak single parents aiming at creating a complex view of single-parent households in Slovakia regarding their demographic profile, socio-economic status, housing, employment, well-being, and co-parenting arrangements;
• qualitative in-depth interviews with Slovak single mothers and fathers, adult children raised in single-parent households, and Ukrainian refugee mothers, investigating personal resilience strategies and agency in various social and individual contexts.

In addition to new theoretical and empirical results, further outputs of the project will be recommendations to policy makers, civil society organizations as well as single parents, in order to propose more ways of how this group can be better supported.