Single mum, running the show.
Around 600,000 Australian mums are raising dependent kids on their own. It's four out of five one-parent families — and the money maths is tighter here than almost anywhere else in the household map.
One income does the work of two. That single fact shapes every number on this page — from the rent a household can carry, to the childcare hours that actually pay for themselves, to how much is left over for super at the end of the fortnight.
The earning picture
Each band is a share of households by total weekly income — wages, family payments and child support combined. Single-mother households cluster in the lower bands; the state view shows how the median shifts around the country.
Read together, the two views tell one story. Single-mother households don't just earn less on average — they're bunched into the lower income bands, where small changes land hardest: a rent rise, a cut to hours, a child ageing out of subsidy. The ACT and NT sit highest, propped up by public-sector wages and remote allowances.
Tasmania and South Australia trail, where part-time work is more common and full-time roles harder to find. A median around $1,000 a week sounds workable until you remember it's one income covering what two often do elsewhere — which is why the gap between the segment line and the all-family line matters more than either figure on its own.
Where the money goes
Housing takes the single biggest bite, and it takes a bigger bite here than for couple households. That's the pressure that shapes every other line of the budget.
When more than a third of income is committed before the trolley is filled, there's little slack for the unexpected. Childcare and education are the next big lever — and the one most sensitive to policy, because the subsidy taper decides whether an extra day of work leaves a household ahead or barely even. That's exactly the calculation the tools below are built to run.
As the kids grow, work picks up
Employment among single mothers is not fixed — it climbs steadily as the youngest child gets older and childcare stops eating the pay packet. By the time the youngest reaches high school, single mums are in paid work at almost the same rate as mums in couple families.
That curve matters for planning. The lean years are front-loaded, when kids are little and care is dear; the room to save, salary-sacrifice into super and pay down a mortgage tends to open up later. Seeing the shape of it makes the early squeeze feel less permanent.