Trajectoires professionnelles et freins à l'emploi des parents isolés allocataires du RMI ou de l'API

Until the introduction of the RSA (Revenu de solidarité active - i.e. Active Solidarity Income) on 1st June 2009 in metropolitan France and 1st January 2011 in overseas territories, poor single-parent families were entitled either to the RMI (Revenu minimum d?insertion ? i.e. Minimum Income Integration) or to the API (Allocation de parent isolé ? i.e. Lone Parent Benefit). In order to fuel the debate on inactivity traps, we identify employment barriers for single-parents welfare recipients by using data from the Drees survey covering a sample of the RMI or API recipients. The survey was conducted in May-June 2008 when the rSa was tested in some areas. We also build up a typology of professional trajectories for single-parent welfare recipients. Four typical professional trajectories are underlined. We complete this analysis by using a multinomial logit model to explain the belonging to a particular typical trajectory. Having two or more children, poor health, a low level of education and having experienced long inactivity periods increase significantly the probability to belong to the trajectories ?mainly in unemployment? or ?mainly in inactivity? rather than to the trajectory ?always in employment?.