Young Single Parents and Employment Barriers in Rural Scotland - A Critical Assessment of Current Policy

9th December 2025

Recent policy developments in Scotland have increasingly focused on improving the employment prospects of young people, particularly those who rely on long-term benefits.

Initiatives such as the Job Start Payment, alongside wider programmes promoting employability and youth participation, are designed to support transitions into work.

Although these interventions can be helpful, they often fail to address the complex and overlapping barriers that many young people face—especially young single parents in rural areas, who encounter significant structural disadvantages beyond financial need.

A useful case example is that of a 20-year-old single mother living in a rural part of the Highlands. She has an 18-month-old child, low qualifications, limited literacy and little or no employment history.

On paper, she falls within the target population for youth employability support. Yet her circumstances reveal the gulf between policy design and lived experience.

The Job Start Payment is intended to offset the immediate costs associated with entering work—childcare deposits, bus fares, work clothing, and lunch money.

For young parents, the payment is higher, which acknowledges the extra pressure that childcare responsibilities place on budgeting. Furthermore, Scotland's suite of family support payments and early-years grants provide some degree of income stability.

However, these financial supports rest on a critical assumption that the young parent can realistically secure a job of at least 12 hours per week. In many rural areas, the labour market makes this exceptionally difficult.

Employment options may be scarce, highly seasonal, poorly paid, or incompatible with childcare hours. Common rural sectors—hospitality, agriculture, retail and social care—often require early mornings, late nights, split shifts or weekend work. For a single parent without childcare flexibility, these roles may simply be impossible to take on, regardless of financial incentives.

The UK Government's broader welfare-to-work model, which increasingly emphasises conditionality and monitoring, further complicates the situation. Single parents may feel pressured to engage in job-seeking activity despite significant barriers such as literacy challenges, lack of transport, or unsuitable local job options.

Sanctions or heightened obligations do not address these root problems and can instead increase stress, instability and financial insecurity. For a young mother with limited education and confidence, such pressures can be counterproductive.

Scottish employability support, although more holistic in principle, is similarly constrained by local infrastructure. Many support services operate online or require travel to larger towns, creating difficulties for people who lack transport or broadband stability.

Training programmes frequently assume a baseline level of literacy or digital confidence, placing young people with very low educational attainment at a disadvantage. Even where appropriate training exists, attending sessions often requires reliable childcare and affordable transport—both of which are in short supply in rural regions.

Childcare is perhaps the most significant barrier. In many parts of rural Scotland, childcare availability is inconsistent, over-subscribed or fixed to limited hours. Childminders may be fully booked or located far from public transport routes. Nurseries commonly operate within standard working hours and cannot support early starts or late finishes, immediately ruling out many of the jobs available locally. Without access to flexible, affordable, nearby childcare, moving off benefits becomes practically impossible.

Transport is the second major limitation. A young parent without a car may face an unreliable or infrequent bus service that does not align with job requirements. Weather disruption, driver shortages, and route reductions can make public transport unpredictable. Many entry-level jobs require early starts before public transport operates, or finishes late in the evening after it has stopped. This reality is rarely acknowledged in national employability policy.

These interlocking disadvantages—limited childcare, unreliable transport, low qualifications, rural isolation, and sector-specific job demands—greatly reduce the ability of young single parents to move from benefits into work.

Current policy frameworks, while well-intentioned, continue to assume a model of mobility and opportunity that does not exist in many rural communities. For young adults in urban or semi-urban areas, employability schemes may offer real pathways to employment. For those in remote areas with multiple barriers, the supports remain insufficient for meaningful, sustained change.

To create genuine opportunities for young single parents in rural Scotland, a place-based, holistic approach is needed. Integrated childcare-and-employment hubs, locally delivered and literacy-friendly training, employer partnerships that recognise parental constraints, and improved community transport would create the conditions under which employment becomes feasible rather than theoretical.

Until such structural challenges are addressed, many young parents will remain dependent on benefits—not due to lack of motivation, but because the practical barriers to employment are overwhelming under the current system.