The last decade has witnessed a sharp increase in the employment of women in the south african workforce (census96, 1996). this trend is reflected globally and it is estimated that about two-thirds of new entrants to the labour force since the 1970s are single and married mothers (anderson, 1997; nickols, 1994). this scenario has implications for business in that issues that pertain to women’s experiences in an employment context need to be addressed (erasmus, 1997). the traditional western family structure, in which the husband is the breadwinner and the wife the homemaker, has largely fallen away (nickols, 1994). the dual-worker family has become accepted as the new norm. however, households headed by single mothers are also very prevalent today. gringlas and weinraub (1995) report an increase of 300% in the number of single parent family units in america over the last two decades, 90% of which are single working mothers (silva, 1996). global statistics state that a quarter of all families with dependent children are headed by single mothers (burns & scott, 1994) and south african statistics reveal the existence of nearly 3.5 million female heads of households (census96, 1996). nickols (1994) describes this situation as a tipping point whereby old social norms have declined in importance but have not yet been replaced by new social norms to create alternative patterns of family and work life. this is evident in the limited studies that explore the experiences of single working mothers, who are usually included in the general category of employed mothers. issues that are unique to their experience are thus overlooked (duxbury, higgins & lee, 1994). as a result, support systems and work schedules have not been sufficiently adjusted to allow for the integration of work and family roles (nickols, 1994). patterns of employment, housing and childcare assume a dual-parent family, and non-statutory discrimination against single mothers is still an issue in many