MANDATORY job seeking requirements for lone parents claiming benefits negatively affects mental health, researchers in Glasgow have found.

Under the lone parent obligations rule, single parents must seek work as a condition of receiving certain welfare benefits once their youngest child reaches a certain age.

Since 2008, when entitlement to income support was dropped for lone parents whose youngest child was 12 or older, this age been reduced from to seven and then to five.

Lone parents affected can claim jobseeker's allowance instead of income support, but to qualify must prove they are looking for work.

The study, involving 40,000 households, found mental health worsened more among lone mothers affected by the changes in the child age cut-off.

Peter Craig, senior research fellow at Glasgow University, which carried out the study, said: "More and more lone parents have been subject to the job seeking requirements in recent years, so the possibility of adverse effects on health should be taken seriously."