The feminization of poverty is a phenomenon that has been observed in the United States since 1970 as female headed households accounted for a growing proportion of those below the poverty line. A large majority of these women are divorced or never-married mothers. In 2000, 11% of all families in the United States lived in poverty, but 28% of families headed by single mothers did so.[1] The burden of supporting a family is difficult for single mothers because of low salaries relating to the lack of previous work experience and low educational attainment and is often exacerbated by meager or unavailable child supports. In the United States, divorce is a primary factor leading to the filing for economic bankruptcy.
References
^ Dalaker. 2001. Poverty in the United States: 2000. Current Population Reports Ser. P60, No. 214. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Richard T. Shaefer. 2004. Racial and Ethnic Groups. (9th ed). Prentice Hall Publishing. Page 410. ISBN 0-13-041869-2
The poverty rate among the elderly, for example, after declining dramatically from 35.2 percent in 1959 to 12.2 percent in 1990, is now lower than for the rest of the population.
The failure of the aggregate poverty rate to decline in the seventies, and its subsequent rise in the eighties, suggest to some that the War on Poverty launched by the federal government in the midsixties failed.
Indeed, the incidence of poverty was as high in the late eighties as it was in the late sixties, and the average poverty rate for the eighties was 2 percentage points higher than the average for the seventies.
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