Care to live

What are the everyday life strategies of single mothers that help to effectively

cope with daily hardships? What modes of resistance are employed,

articulated or imagined by single mothers as they navigate their daily

routines?

This is the premise of the study that offers an in-depth ethnographic study

of well-educated single mothers in Kaunas, Lithuania - a post-socialist

semi-periphery marked by structural precarity. Through feminist activist

ethnography, this thesis examines how single mothers develop material,

emotional, and social strategies to survive and care within conditions

shaped by neoliberalism, insufficient welfare systems, and societal stigma.

The concept of care is placed at the centre of this dissertation, highlighting

care labour as often unpaid and invisibilized, yet - central to single mothers'

lives, constituting both a burden and a potential site of resistance. This thesis

also examines how normative ideals of family, motherhood, and success

intersect with class, gender, and labour to shape women's lived experiences.