New data sources such as the Generations and Gender Survey of the Federal Institute for Population Research, which is used here, make it possible to record the heterogeneity of the living arrangements of single parents with finer instruments and, thanks to retrospective individual data, to acquire knowledge on the dynamics of life course-specific changes with greater sensitivity. The findings show that the public attention given to single parents can also be understood as an expression of institutional labelling and discrimination. Our results confirm that this group of people is generally in less favourable socio-economic situations than singles, families and cohabiting couples. However, the analyses also show that the financial situation improves with increasing age or longer duration of single parenthood. Transmission belts for consolidation are primarily integration into working life, the formation of non-conventional forms of partnership and relationships and the development of broad and intensively used social capital and social network structures. As a result of the study, it can be stated that multiple dangers observed in single parents occur primarily in the early phase of this life form. A large number of single parents succeed in optimising their living conditions autonomously via the above-mentioned paths.