Emotional support is crucial to the well-being of low-income, single women and their children in most contexts. Support from women may be especially important for single mothers because of precarious ties to their children's fathers, the prevalence of extended matrifocal living arrangements, and gendered norms that place men as providers of financial rather than emotional support. However, in contexts marked by economic insecurity, spatial dispersion of families, and changing gender norms and kinship obligations, such an expectation may be problematic. Applying theories of emotional capital and family bargaining processes, we address three questions: 1) what is the gender composition of emotional support that single mothers receive? 2) how does gender composition change over time? and 3) does the gender composition of emotional support affect self-reported stress of single mothers? Drawing on data from a unique dataset on 462 low-income single mothers and their kin from Nairobi, Kenya, we uncover three key findings. One, whereas the bulk of strong emotional support comes from female kin, about 20% of respondents report having male dominant support networks. Two, nearly 30% of respondents report change in the composition of their emotional support over six months favoring men. Three, having a male dominant emotional support network is associated with lower stress. These results challenge what is commonly taken for granted about gender norms and kinship obligations in non-Western contexts.

中文翻译：

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非洲低收入城市环境中的性别情感支持和妇女福祉。

在大多数情况下，情感支持对于低收入单身女性及其子女的福祉至关重要。女性的支持对于单身母亲来说可能尤其重要，因为她们与孩子父亲的关系不稳定，长期的母居生活安排普遍存在，而且性别规范将男性视为经济支持而非情感支持的提供者。然而，在经济不安全、家庭空间分散、性别规范和亲属义务不断变化的背景下，这种期望可能会出现问题。应用情感资本和家庭讨价还价过程的理论，我们解决了三个问题：1）单亲母亲获得的情感支持的性别构成是什么？2）性别构成如何随时间变化？3）情感支持的性别构成是否影响单亲母亲的自我报告压力？根据来自肯尼亚内罗毕 462 名低收入单亲母亲及其亲属的独特数据集的数据，我们发现了三个关键发现。第一，虽然大部分强烈的情感支持来自女性亲属，但约 20% 的受访者表示拥有男性主导的支持网络。第二，近 30% 的受访者表示，在六个月内，他们的情感支持的构成发生了变化，有利于男性。第三，拥有男性主导的情感支持网络与较低的压力有关。这些结果挑战了非西方背景下人们普遍认为理所当然的性别规范和亲属关系义务。