the increase in the proportion of single parent families thus seems to be an important determinant of the growth in the proportion of children living in a household whose standard of living is below the mid s poverty line but who are not counted as poor on the basis of a floating poverty line due to the drop in median income that followed the great recession in a large number of countries this effect is stronger when considering the poverty rate with an anchored poverty line in and holds also when focusing on within country trends column which suggests that in many countries the relative stability or even the increase in mothers employment despite the great recession has been an important safeguard against the increase in child poverty while it has increased significantly in countries where maternal employment has declined e g spain estonia greece ireland or the slovak republic note that the effect is also robust no matter the chosen model specification see annex c table c and table c