Childcare, finance and time-poverty preventing lone parents from accessing third-level education

21 Oct 2025

• Systemic barriers such as inadequate financial supports, housing, childcare, and transport costs continue to block lone parents from pursuing education.
• The report calls for an “education first” approach, with adequate supports to enable lone parents to access higher education and attain well-paid, secure employment.
• New research led by UCC School of Applied Social Studies researchers in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin and One Family.

Lone parents are prevented from equally accessing higher education, due to systemic barriers and insufficient financial supports, which negatively impacts on their long-term employment.

New research, entitled 'Education first? Lone parents’ lived experience of the challenges and benefits of participating in Higher Education', was conducted by UCC School of Applied Social Studies researchers Dr Fiona Dukelow, Dr Margaret Scanlon and Edith Busteed, in collaboration with Dr Joe Whelan, Trinity College Dublin, and in partnership with One Family. 

The report highlights:

• Lone parents remain under-represented in higher education , with both institutions and policymakers lacking data on their participation
• Lone parents are not provided with clear pathways to higher education, which can create a reliance on state support if prevented from attaining well-paid, secure jobs. which is a critical anti-poverty measure for one-parent families
• Lone parents face multiple additional barriers to higher education including a failure to acknowledge the additional care responsibilities they hold, not being provided sufficient financial supports to cover the real cost of education, housing, transport and childcare

The report recommends that: 

• Government to move from a “work activation” to an “education first” approach for lone parents, which would increase their ability to attain high-paid, secure work.
  
• Lone parents are given adequate financial and educational supports. SUSI grants and social welfare payments should fully reflect the real cost of participation. Access to affordable, quality childcare and secure housing must be made available. Supports must meet the needs of lone parent students, and more flexible learning options made available.
• Improved data collection and accountability from the Higher Education Authority and Department of Social Protection, including data collection on lone parent participation in higher education and for the Higher Education Authority to set clear participation targets in future Access Strategies.

Karen Kiernan, CEO of One Family, said: “We are delighted to be a research partner for this critical report. One-parent families on low incomes experience some of the highest levels of poverty, deprivation, social exclusion and homelessness in Ireland. To exit poverty requires a clear pathway to further or higher education, and the current system prevents lone parents from doing that, due to a lack of supports and too many barriers to their education. Access to education is a critical anti-poverty measure for one-parent families and government need to recognise that. We need free childcare for lone parents in higher education, adequate financial supports to cover the full cost of their education, and improved supports tailored to meet the needs of students who are parenting alone, so that they are met with understanding and a supportive system that empowers them to achieve their goals.”

Dr Fiona Dukelow, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy in UCC School of Applied Social Studies, said: “Lone parent students are a largely invisible group in higher education. They are also a very diverse group of students. Despite being recognised as a group whose access and participation in higher education needs to increase, behind this policy commitment lies a lack of data, a lack of targets and a lack of policy supports that would make a difference to lone parents who are considering or who are in higher education. The research reveals the huge challenges lone parents face as students, but also the huge importance of higher education to their and their children’s wellbeing, and why improving policy supports across a whole range of areas, from financial supports, to childcare, to higher education supports, is critical to improving their access, participation and student experience”. 

Addressing the launch, Senator Lynn Ruane said: “I really welcome this important research which should be read by every policy maker and politician who wants to see an end to poverty in this country. The research restates what we already know; that education can play a key role in ending child and family poverty through targeted, tailored and meaningful supports as well as guaranteed funding that dismantles the structural barriers faced by those parenting alone and their children. Whole families depend on adequate state and higher education interventions which provide choices, but they need to be clearly illuminated and easily accessible.”  

The full research report can be accessed here.

The reseach was funded by Research Ireland under its New Foundations programme which supports research partnerships with community and voluntary organisations to conduct research that enhances services and their impact.