The Recovery Was a Lottery. Single Mothers Lost
- Cassandra is Tired
- Feb 22
- 13 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Economist Katherine Scott has spent years studying data on women's labour as the director for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' gender equality and public policy work. In this exclusive interview, she discusses how the pandemic split women's fortunes in two, and why the mothers who fell behind were erased from the data before anyone noticed.
TL;DR
Single mothers in Toronto experienced a categorically different pandemic and a categorically worse recovery. Employment among single mothers with children under six fell 36% between February 2020 and the end of 2021, while partnered mothers in the same group saw employment rise 4.5%.
Many who appeared to "recover" in the data had simply moved in with someone out of desperation, making them statistically invisible. Flexible jobs never fully came back. Subsidized childcare was a matter of luck, inflation hit them hardest and the social infrastructure – community, belonging, inclusion – is still locked behind the playground gates.
None of this is inevitable. It is a series of attitudes and choices on the community level we have the power to change.
When the first lockdown hit in March 2020, single mothers knew we were fucked.
It wasn’t that two-parent households didn’t also have it really, really hard. Everyone did. It’s that you can’t fully comprehend what’s involved in the minute-by-minute high-wire act of managing a full-time job, running a household and raising a child by yourself until you’ve lived it. Take away all the structures that make this feasible and single moms immediately clocked that our kids were going to be harder hit: our bodies could only be in one place at one time and have finite capacity.
We knew that everything we’d pushed through to minimize our children’s odds of ending up a Conservative Party dog whistle was about to be compromised. We knew that if we were dealing with a hostile or uncooperative co-parent, we were now at their mercy in a new, terrifying way: courts had closed, custody agreements became suggestions and legal protections evaporated overnight.
We knew that if our kids had any special needs or health issues, access to care was about to become pay-for-play. If we had any health issues, that was a whole other category.
We knew that in the chaos of being left to fend for ourselves, it would be difficult to get coupled parents and non-parents to truly grasp that our pandemics were different; that the same rules and generalizations did not apply; that we needed more than platitudes.
But saying this out loud was not well received when everyone was managing their own survival, and anything that threatened our access to community had to be swallowed like the wine we began guzzling each day at 5 pm to chase it all down.
Inside the box, mothers suffocated
While no one can dispute that single fathers had it hard, the penalties for single mothers were in a different league. Before lockdown, data showed all mothers, on average, still bore the brunt of the domestic drudgery, active childcare and mental load – despite also working full time and earning less. There was hope this exposure, laid bare through hard numbers and thoughtful analysis, would help level the playing field. But before that data could be applied, the world hit survival mode.
Within the family structure, that meant doing whatever had to be done. And while many men absolutely stepped up, women, on aggregate, still ate way more shit. Too many had to step back from careers, or accept they weren’t going to be able to meet the same professional standard.
TORONTO CONTEXT: MULTIPLE LOCKDOWNS IN THE SAME CITY
In Toronto, the "box" was shaped by your postal code. In M4 or M6 neighbourhoods, lockdown was a claustrophobic nightmare of Zoom calls, online school supervision, meal prep, and keeping children emotionally and physically afloat 24/7.
In M9 zones like Jane and Finch or Rexdale, lockdown didn't exist. You were on a sardine-can 36 Finch West bus at 5 am trying to avoid viral load, heading to a frontline essential job while your kid navigated the TDSB’s crumbling digital portal alone.
Toronto is the most multicultural city in the world and there are still not enough words in enough languages to properly express our reaction to the "we're all in this together" mantra.
For all working mothers, a sympathetic employer was a matter of luck. A competent and willing partner also. Many lost jobs altogether. Some had to do all this while trapped in abusive partnerships because it was impossible to leave. Access to medical care was uncertain. Her mental health? We don’t have time for that now. Everyone is suffering. Try self-care. It costs money.
Now remove the other parent.
We didn’t disappear. We were disappeared
The most important piece of recovery for single moms is returning to a place of economic stability. Rebuilding the scaffolding starts with facts. Katherine Scott, senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) and one of Canada’s leading analysts of women’s labour market experiences, spoke to PWRB about the post-pandemic economic picture.
One of the biggest structural problems was a data dump. As in a bunch of people got dumped: When economic recovery started taking off in 2021, the number of single mothers appeared to tank. Thankfully Scott, who has tracked lone-parent households through multiple economic cycles, could read between the lines.
“It wasn’t because they were no longer single mothers. Many had changed their living situation out of necessity. When you move in with somebody else, your household changes for the purposes of data collection and your incomes are combined. So, a lot of folks were disappeared from the data.” — Katherine Scott, Senior Researcher, CCPA
The problem is that women who vanished from the statistics also vanished from the policy conversation. They were absorbed into partner households on paper, their needs effectively invisible to the programs designed to serve them. It also doesn’t account for income loss, or the ability to become independent again. It doesn’t account for what it means to move back in with someone you may have left for a reason, in a city where a piece-of-shit basement apartment with bed bugs can run you up to $1,500, but moving out of the city swallows half your employment opportunities.
Scott says she hasn’t yet looked at whether these women have re-emerged in the numbers since, nor what the long-term consequences were for those who had to choose a living situation out of desperation. So we wait in the squeeze until a clearer long-term picture can emerge. In the meantime, our children haven't stopped needing to be raised and fed.
Some got on the escalator. The escalator was narrow and wonky
The immediate aftermath of the pandemic was, in Scott’s words, “a nightmare for single moms.” The immediate aftermath of the pandemic was, in my words, the "This is fine" meme on an unsupervised meth spiral. The calamitous rise in unemployment hit single moms first and hardest. Not only did many lose their jobs, but care centres and schools closed, leaving no one to cover the gap that a second parent may have filled.
Scott’s own analysis of Statistics Canada’s Labour Force data found that the employment rate for single mothers with children under six fell 36% between February 2020 and the end of 2021. Over the same period, the employment rate for partnered mothers in the same age group rose 4.5%. Read that again. While partnered mothers were incrementally gaining ground, single mothers were kicked back to the bottom, erasing whatever ground they'd gained.
Who caught the recovery and who didn't
The recovery has been no more equal. As labour markets tightened in 2021 and job openings cropped up in healthcare and tech, some women found themselves on an upward trajectory; many more got pulled under the mechanical steps. Here's what Scott observed:
Who got on the escalator: Women with post-secondary credentials, proximity to tech and healthcare sectors, and existing social capital — including some single mothers, particularly those who are racialized or Indigenous and managed to access these sectors.
Who didn't: Women in personal services, hospitality, and retail — the flexible sectors that single mothers depended on for school pickups, sick days, and the general unpredictability of solo parenting. Those industries never fully came back.
The Toronto multiplier: In a city where full-time daycare already outpaced rent in most of the country, losing flexible work had compounding consequences. There was no equivalent replacement. There was no equivalent flexibility. The math stopped mathing.
Scott’s own study puts it plainly: the mechanisms that reproduce economic disadvantage for women were not dislodged or disrupted by the pandemic. In 2021, the year the recovery was supposed to have arrived, the top 1% of tax filers took home an average of $811,800 — a 40-year high — while low-income families absorbed the worst of it. A peer-reviewed study across Canada’s eight largest cities found the same pattern: shrinking middle-income populations, growing low-income groups, and high-income enclaves pulling further and further away. Food and housing costs have surged, while many incomes have not kept pace.
“For a single mom household, that really just hits harder in lots of ways. Inflation’s come down, but food and housing are still much higher than they were pre-pandemic.” — Katherine Scott, CCPA
Families with dual incomes are making really hard decisions. Now remove an income, adjust it for the motherhood tax, add a metric tonne of burnout and you’ve got a piping hot canary-in-the-coalmine casserole.
The $10-a-day childcare lottery
In some provinces, some communities, at some point during this period, a single mother might have accessed a $10-a-day subsidized childcare spot through the federal program. Scott says this made a real and immediate difference to household finances, particularly for immigrant families where the relief was most needed.
Unfortunately, the rollout landed exactly as anyone with a fully developed pre-frontal cortex could have predicted. If there weren’t enough daycare spots in the country for parents who could pay up to $1,500 per kid – and believe you me, there weren’t anywhere near enough — how on earth was the government supposed to ensure more than a handful of the lucky would nab one of the cheap seats?
It didn't help that, in Ontario, the Ford government treated it with the same contempt they show for public services in general. It became a hot potato they tossed to each other, so by the time they were forced to catch it, single-parent financial survival was the only thing that got scorched.
“It was kind of a lottery. If you were in the right community, the right spot, right time, you may have been among a group of women who did okay. But there were never enough spots.” — Katherine Scott, CCPA
The geography of who actually got a spot
The infuriatingly obvious part of it all is that the mothers who needed it most — single mothers in precarious work, in high-cost neighbourhoods, in communities already under-resourced before the pandemic — were the least likely to get it.
A subsidized spot in Parkdale or Leslieville does not solve childcare for a single mom in Scarborough working a split shift.
The rollout's geography mirrored the city's inequality.
As long as the government could point to success stories, they could technically take credit for following through on a party promise.
And now, per Scott, the labour force data for early 2026 is, to use her precise scientific term, “crap.” There was a big drop in employment reported for February. The state of precarity, as she acknowledges, is probably something we all have to accept as the new normal. You’ll probably get a daycare spot before any of that changes. Your kid will also be a legal adult by then.
We want our kids to thrive. We are not trying to be a burden
Single mothers have closed some gaps in extraordinary ways over the last few decades, but there are a million different micro-realities that impact our ability to raise our children. For racialized and Indigenous single mothers in Toronto, the pandemic layered crisis on top of crisis in ways the aggregate data still doesn’t fully capture.
The women who managed to catch the escalator in 2021 were disproportionately those who already had more: more education, more proximity to in-demand sectors, more of the intangible advantages that look like individual achievement and are actually structural luck.
Even single mothers who hit all the metrics of culturally defined success in Canada — higher education, hardworking, fully employed — have been buried by the pandemic aftermath and many haven’t recovered professionally or financially. Attitudes we thought we’d left in the 20th century are starting to re-emerge. Single mothers have become a convenient target in the Scapegoat Olympics that is our current culture war, using the language of feminism against us.
The law of the jungle gym
Here's where it really matters, though, and the only place it can actually improve. We need more physical, consistent community. Unfortunately, in Toronto, "community" is an invisible gated playground. You can live in the same neighbourhood, even the same street, and have all the same interests, but you're still locked out where it counts: inclusion in a meaningful way.
The "acceptable single mother" performance
When you become a single mother, you quickly realize you've been dumped into a new social hierarchy that impacts your (and your children's) chance at thriving. If you're a "good" single mother (employed, resourced, get along with your ex, have the right support system, remain positive, cheerful and fun) you're more likely to be in. If you lack any of these things, you're categorically assessed and demoted.
What this looks like is invisible exclusion.
Here's how it works. The single mothers who fit the criteria are held up as examples that society no longer stigmatizes us. It's the $10-a-day childcare of social norms. This allows people with Liberal and NDP signs on their lawn to keep their social circles tight and aspirational without having to feel bad about themselves.
There are a bunch of built-in escape hatches, too:
We were worried you couldn't afford the weekend trip/restaurant meal/concert.
We didn't want to make you pay for a babysitter.
We didn't think you'd be interested.
You must be so strapped for time.
It was just a small last-minute gathering.
There's the one-off invitation, then silence. So we get quietly edged out of belonging by people who rationalize that they're just being "discerning" when they’re actually replicating the social hierarchies they claim to hate. The only difference is they're wearing "Good Person" clothing (still expensive, designed to look relatable instead of conspicuous) instead of deliberate designer logo signifiers.
The resolution: Not a plea, a warning. And possibly a good time
Single mothers know that no one is coming to save us. We’ve been the "canary in the coalmine" for so long we can sing with lungfuls of carbon monoxide. What we need everyone to remember is that when the canary dies, the miners are next.
So in the absence of structural supports and economic stability, what we need is community that actually includes us. Not charity or pity. Just the basic human infrastructure of being seen and counted and not quietly pushed to the edges of a social world that only seems to have room for families that look a certain way.
That is how you save children from becoming statistics. None of this is inevitable at all. It is a series of attitudes and choices we as humans, in a group of other humans, have the power to change.
If you want to know how to prepare for what's coming, you may want to start reframing how you evaluate us socially and start inviting us into your closed circles. We've got survival tips that will blow your mind. And once you stop making us perform the script for your own social comfort, you'll find we're smart, funny and real as fuck.
Download the Parenting While Rome Burns playbook on "How to build the village we were supposed to have."
FURTHER READING
Katherine Scott, "The widening gap: Gender segregation and job polarization in the post-pandemic labour market." CCPA
StatsCan, "Labour Force Survey, February 2026."
Lazar Ilic and M. Sawada, "The temporal evolution of income polarization in Canada's largest CMAs." PLOS One
Allison Jones, "Advocates call for federal, provincial governments to strengthen child-care system." The Canadian Press
Jenna Benchetrit, "Canada's economy lost 84,000 jobs in February, unemployment rate ticked up to 6.7%." CBC
Joanna Syrda, "Married mothers who earn more than their husbands take on an even greater share of housework, research finds." University of Bath
Fay Faraday, "Resetting Normal: Women, Decent Work and Canada's Fractured Care Economy." Osgoode Digital Commons
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How did the pandemic affect single mothers differently than partnered mothers?
Single mothers lost employment at a dramatically higher rate. According to Statistics Canada Labour Force data analyzed by CCPA researcher Katherine Scott, the employment rate for single mothers with children under six fell 36% between February 2020 and end of 2021. Partnered mothers in the same group saw their employment rate rise 4.5% over the same period.
The key structural difference: partnered households had a second adult to absorb caregiving when schools and daycares closed. Single mothers had no equivalent. Their pandemics were categorically different, not just harder. They were also unable to access a broader circle of care when everyone was also busy surviving.
Why did the number of single mothers appear to drop in the recovery data?
When single mothers moved in with partners or family members out of financial necessity, their household classification changed in Statistics Canada's data collection methodology. Incomes were combined and they were no longer counted as lone-parent households — even though their financial precarity hadn't changed.
CCPA researcher Katherine Scott identified this as statistical disappearance: "A lot of folks were disappeared from the data." Women who vanished from the statistics also vanished from the policy conversation, making it impossible to design programs that addressed their real needs.
Did the $10-a-day childcare program help single mothers in Toronto?
For some, yes. Scott confirms it made a real difference to household finances, particularly for immigrant families. But the rollout was deeply unequal. There were never enough subsidized spots, and they were disproportionately accessed in already-resourced communities. A subsidized spot in Parkdale or Leslieville doesn't solve childcare for a single mother in Scarborough working a split shift.
The Ontario government's reluctant, delayed implementation compounded the problem. The mothers who needed it most were among the least likely to get it.
What happened to the flexible jobs single mothers relied on?
Hospitality, retail, and personal services, all sectors that offered the scheduling flexibility compatible with solo parenting, were hardest hit during the pandemic and they never fully recovered. When those jobs disappeared, there was no equivalent replacement in terms of flexibility.
The industries that did bounce back (healthcare, tech) required credentials, certifications, and full-time availability that many single mothers couldn't access. The recovery escalator was real, but narrow and its entry requirements screened out many of the women who needed it most.
How does social exclusion affect single mothers and their children's outcomes?
Research consistently links children's wellbeing to community belonging, and not just household income. When single mothers are excluded from social networks (school parent groups, neighbourhood circles, informal support systems), their children lose access to the broader social scaffolding that affects development, opportunity, secure attachment and resilience.
The exclusion often operates invisibly: other parents don't explicitly reject single mothers, they simply leave them out of things — often reframing exhaustion and limited availability as "bad vibes" or "lack of chemistry." The result is a quiet edging-out from belonging that compounds every other form of precarity.
Are racialized and Indigenous single mothers more affected?
Yes. The pandemic layered crisis on top of pre-existing disadvantage for racialized and Indigenous single mothers in ways the aggregate data still doesn't fully capture. The women who managed to access the recovery escalator in 2021 were disproportionately those who already had structural advantages — more education, proximity to growing sectors, existing social capital.
Racialized and Indigenous single mothers faced compounded barriers across every dimension: employment, childcare access, housing stability, and community inclusion.
What would actually help single mothers recover?
Structural: Childcare access that is genuinely equitable, distributed by need, not geography or luck. Wages that don't require a partner to survive. Flexible work that doesn't disappear when it becomes inconvenient for employers. Policy methodology that counts lone parents even when they move into shared housing.
Social: Community that actually includes single mothers — not as charity cases, but as full participants. The informal networks that provide emotional support, practical help and a sense of belonging are as important to children's outcomes as any government program. None of this requires policy change, it requires a genuine effort on the part of others in the community to re-evaluate their social criteria and act on it consistently.
Cassandra is Tired
Writer · Exhausted Toronto Parent
Interview conducted March 2026.
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