Dissertation Title: “FAMILIES HEADED BY WOMEN, SOCIAL POLICY AND POVERTY IN TIMES OF PANDEMIC: an analysis of the survival conditions of single mothers in the city of Belém/Pará."

Student: RENATA DO SOCORRO DOS ANJOS BENTES

ABSTRACT: This study aims to verify the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the living and working conditions of single-parent families with female headship, solo mothers, and beneficiaries of the Bolsa Família Cash Transfer Program, in the city of Belém/PA. As an investigation method, this research sought to be based on Historical and Dialectical Materialism, having technical-operative procedures: bibliographical survey, documental research, and field research. The bibliographical survey prioritized the works published in the main academic portals, in consonance with the investigated theme, besides the approach to the debate involving classic and contemporary authors, in an attempt to problematize the theme in the context and limits of the current capitalist society. The documentary research was constituted from the in-depth reading of national and international documents, as well as federal organs and institutes, to identify the demographic aspects of single-parent families headed by women, at the national, state, and municipal levels, also in an attempt to make a historical overview of the relationship between Social Assistance policies and the gender issue. The field research consisted of the analysis of the identification forms of the families, in this case, the single-parent families with female headship, assisted by the Service of Protection and Integral Care to the Family (PAIF) in the Reference Centers for Social Assistance (CRAS) Guamá and Terra Firme, in the years 2019 to 2021, aiming to identify the impacts that the Covid-19 pandemic has triggered in the living and working conditions of the family nuclei that have as their main representative a woman, solo mother and user of the Bolsa Família Program (PBF), in the municipality of Belém/PA. The results indicate that, as of 2020, jobs, daycare centers, and schools were closed, in addition to an increase in increasingly precarious labor relations based on informality. There has also been an increase in structural unemployment that has affected families in Brazil as a whole, as well as an increase in hunger and poverty, and a high demand for social benefits, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. These factors have had an enormous impact on the female population, and especially on the female heads of households, the majority of whom are black, at the national and municipal levels, exacerbating the historic inequality of class, gender, and race in Brazil. In the state of Pará and the city of Belém, this process resulted in the utmost urgency for the implementation of policies to guarantee and protect the rights of this segment, despite the difficulties imposed by the current federal government and its ultra-liberal logic.

Keywords: Families, female single-parent households, solo mothers, female family headship, Covid-19 pandemic.

Examination Board:

Prof.ª Dr.ª CILENE SEBASTIANA DA CONCEICAO BRAGA (Advisor) - UFPA

Prof.ª Dr.ª ADRIANA DE AZEVEDO MATHIS (Internal Evaluator) - UFPA

Prof.ª Dr.ª MARIA INES MARTINHO ANTUNES AMARO (External Evaluator) - ISCTE-IUL

Local: Sala Multimeios FAAD/ICSA

Date: 10/11/2022

Start: 10:30