Women and Poverty

Psychology, Public Policy, and Social Justice

Heather E. Bullock

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781405183505, 9781405183512
• eBook ISBN: 9781118378779
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Women and Poverty analyzes the social and structural factors that contribute to, and legitimize, class inequity and women's poverty. In doing so, the book provides a unique documentation of women's experiences of poverty and classism at the individual and interpersonal levels.

• Provides readers with a critical analysis of the social and structural factors that contribute to women's poverty
• Uses a multidisciplinary approach to bring together new research and theory from social psychology, policy studies, and critical and feminist scholarship
• Documents women's experiences of poverty and classism at the interpersonal and institutional levels
• Discusses policy analysis for reducing poverty and social inequality

1

Women and Poverty: An Ongoing Crisis

In the United States and around the world, women bear much of the brunt of poverty (Goldberg, 2010; International Labour Office (ILO), 2010; US Census Bureau, 2012a). Seventy percent of the world's poor are women (United Nations Women, n.d.), and despite tremendous differences in living standards, wealth, and opportunity, common root causes emerge around the world – discrimination, unequal sharing of family and household responsibilities, abusive relationships, lack of control and access to resources (e.g., education and land), and segregation into low-paid, low-status jobs (ILO, 2011). Substandard, dangerous living conditions, poor health and limited access to health care, lack of nutritious food, and the stress of financial insecurity are but a few of the devastating daily realities faced by poor women and their children.

In the United States, the richest nation in the world, the contrast between wealth and poverty is extreme, and women remain disproportionately poor despite progress toward gender equality. A staggering 40.9% of US female-headed households with children under the age of 18 were poor in 2011 (National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), 2012). Although the Great Recession (December, 2007–June, 2009) has deepened women's economic hardship (Hayes & Hartmann, 2011), the history of women's poverty runs long and deep (Albelda & Tilly, 1997; Gordon, 1994; Piven & Cloward, 1993; Sidel, 1998).

This chapter provides an overview of contemporary rates of poverty and homelessness, illustrating the heavy burden of economic hardship on women. Emphasis is placed on understanding how poverty and homelessness are “counted” in the United States, and the consequences of different measurement strategies. Special attention is given to the shortcomings of official US poverty estimates, political controversies surrounding poverty measurement, and the role of social science research in addressing these challenges and bringing women's poverty to the forefront of public consciousness.

Women, Poverty, and Rising Economic Inequality

The Feminization of Poverty

Diana Pearce (1978) coined the term the “feminization of poverty” in the 1970s to describe disproportionately high rates of poverty among women in spite of seeming gains in gender equality and women's increased labor force participation. Lamenting this paradox, she observed, “Though many women have achieved economic independence from their spouses by their participation in the labor force (and in some cases, by divorce), for many the price of that independence has been their pauperization and dependence on welfare” (Pearce, 1978, p. 28). Of course, women are not a homogenous group, and the influx of white women into the paid labor force revealed what had long been a reality for women of color – work does not necessarily guarantee a life free from poverty. Feminist scholars are quick to point to variations in women's relationship to power, and the “feminization of poverty” has been criticized for failing to appreciate the diversity of women's experiences and for its relatively exclusive focus on income over other forms of deprivation and exclusion (Chant, 2007). With these caveats in mind, the “feminization of poverty” is an apt shorthand to describe women's overrepresentation among the poor in the United States and internationally (Brady & Kall, 2008; Goldberg, 2010).

The feminization of poverty is documented around the world, typically evidenced by women's greater lifetime risk of experiencing poverty and the higher rates of poverty found among women than men. In the mid-1980s, US women were 41% more likely to be poor than men (Casper, McLanahan, & Garfinkel, 1994), and these trends persist. In a study of mid-1990s poverty rates in eight indus­trialized nations, the United States had the largest gender poverty gap, with women's poverty rates outpacing men's by 38% (Christopher, England, Smeeding, & Phillips, 2002). Race and educational attainment intersect with gender to increase risk. Rank and Hirschl (2001) estimate that 98.3% of Black women between the ages of 25 and 75 with less than 12 years of education will experience poverty compared with 65.4% of similarly educated white men. Because women are at high risk of poverty during childhood, adulthood, and their senior years, the feminization of poverty is conceptualized using a life course perspective (Pearce & Moritz, 1988).

In the wake of the Great Recession and in the face of rising inequality (Hayes & Hartmann, 2011; Sherman & Stone, 2010), the US poverty rate in 2010 reached its second highest point since 1965, with 46.2 million people (15.1% of the population) or one in seven Americans living below official poverty thresholds ($22,314 for a family of four; US Census Bureau, 2011; Trisi, Sherman, & Broaddus, 2011). Deep poverty, defined as half of the poverty line (below $11,157 for a family of four), reached its highest point on record in 2010 with approximately 20.5 million people (6.7% of the population) falling below these levels (Trisi et al., 2011). There is little indication of improvement. In 2011, the official poverty rate (15%) and the number of people living below official poverty thresholds remained statistically unchanged from 2010 figures (US Census Bureau, 2012a). Likewise, “deep poverty” remained problematic, with 20.4 million people (6.6% of the population) falling below half of the poverty line.

Individuals and families hovering just above official poverty thresholds are not technically counted as poor, but are undoubtedly economically vulnerable. Their inclusion dramatically increases estimates of economic hardship. In 2010, the number of US residents with incomes below 200% of poverty thresholds rose from 33.0% in 2009 to 33.9% in 2010 ($44,226 for a family of four with two adults and two children; Trisi et al., 2011). Put another way, it can be argued that one-third of Americans are low income.

Delving deeper into these numbers reveals women's economic vulnerability. The poverty rate was 3.7 percentage points higher for women (14.6%) than men (10.9%) in 2011, and this gap grows wider when ethnicity and marital status are considered (NWLC, 2012). Across all racial and ethnic groups, women experience higher rates of poverty than white men (7.7%; NWLC, 2012). In 2011, 25.9% of Black women, 23.9% of Hispanic women, 27.1% of Native American women, 12.1% of Asian women, and 10.6% of white women lived below official poverty thresholds (NWLC, 2012). Marital status, particularly single motherhood, conveys further vulnerability. Nearly 41% of female-headed households lived below official poverty thresholds in 2011 compared with 21.9% of male-headed households with children and 8.8% of heterosexual married families with children (NWLC, 2012). Again, further insight into the feminization of poverty is gained by disaggregating these statistics by race and ethnicity. Approximately one in two Black female-headed families with children (47.3%), Hispanic female-headed families with children (49.1%), and Native American female-headed families with children (53.8%) live below official poverty thresholds (NWLC, 2012). White (33%) and Asian (26.3%) female-headed households with children fare relatively better, with approximately one in three or fewer of these families living in poverty.

Measuring Poverty: The Debates Behind the Numbers

These figures, as shocking as they are, likely underestimate the true extent of women's economic hardship. The scope of US poverty is highly contested, blunting the potential impact of high rates of poverty to impact social policy or spark significant public outrage. The definition and measurement of poverty lies at the heart of these debates.

Official Poverty Measurement.

US poverty thresholds, or what we commonly call the “poverty line,” were developed in the 1960s by Mollie Orshanksy, a research analyst with the Social Security Administration charged with constructing a measure of need to inform War on Poverty initiatives (Blank, 2008). Orshansky anchored her calculations to the US Department of Agriculture's “thrifty food” plan, an inexpensive “adequately nutritious” diet designed for temporary and/or emergency use. Based on data from the 1955 Household Food Consumption Survey indicating that about one-third of after-tax income was spent on food, poverty thresholds were constructed for families of different sizes by multiplying the cost of the economy food plan by three to determine minimal annual income needs (Willis, 2000). For instance, the poverty threshold in 1964 for a family of four with three children was $3100 ($1033 per year for food multiplied by three). Individuals and families whose incomes fall below their respective thresholds are considered “poor” (Willis, 2000). Orshansky's poverty thresholds were adopted in 1969 as a working definition of poverty (Fisher, 2008), and are updated annually to account for inflation, but the same basic formula continues to be used. The poverty threshold for a family of four in 1975 was $5,569, $10,989 in 1985, $15,569 in 1995, $19,971 in 2005, and $23,201 in 2011 (US Census Bureau, n.d.).

Criticism of US poverty thresholds is widespread (for comprehensive summaries, see Blank, 2008; Haveman, 2009), with both progressives and conservatives finding fault in how these figures are calculated and the validity of the poverty rates derived from them, albeit for different reasons. Continued reliance on the economy food plan as the foundation of poverty thresholds tops many lists. In 2010, US consumers spent approximately 35% of their income on housing compared with approximately 15% on food (US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 2011a). Progressives argue that meaningful poverty thresholds must reflect contemporary spending patterns, as well as a broad range of family expenses (e.g., child care, medical care, and housing), many of which are likely greater than food expenditures. Basing calculations on data that is so out of sync with contemporary realities and needs, it is argued, contributes to the gross underestimation of poverty and need. Conservatives also take issue with poverty measurement, particularly the fact that poverty rates are based solely on cash income before taxes. As such, it is claimed that poverty rates are inflated because the value of noncash benefits, such as food assistance (i.e., the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, formerly known as “food stamps”) and housing subsidies, are not part of official poverty calculations (Rector & Sheffield, 2011).

Alternative Poverty Measures.

Mounting criticism has resulted in the development of alternative poverty measures. The US Census Bureau (2012b) now reports a supplemental poverty measure (SPM) that takes into account common contemporary expenses (e.g., utilities and work-related transportation), receipt of in-kind benefits (e.g., subsidized housing, food assistance, and tax credits), and geographic differences in housing costs. SPM thresholds are slightly higher than official thresholds. In 2011, the official poverty threshold for a family with two adults and two children was $22,811, whereas SPM thresholds for a similar size family that owned a home with a with a mortgage was $25,703 and $25,222 for renters (US Census Bureau 2012b). Clearly, these thresholds still fall below what is needed to care adequately for a family.

The SPM paints a similarly bleak portrait of poverty. Under this alternative measure, the overall poverty rate jumps from the official rate of 15.0% in 2011 to 16.1% (US Census Bureau 2012b). Poverty rates for female-headed households remained statistically unchanged using the SPM; however, significantly higher poverty rates were found for senior citizens (15.1% vs. 8.7%), working age adults between 18 and 64 (15.5% vs. 13.7%), Asians (16.9% vs. 12.3%), Hispanics (28% vs. 25.4%), and whites (14.3% vs. 12.9%), and slightly lower rates of poverty for children under 18 (18.1% vs. 22.3%) and African Americans (25.7% vs. 27.8%; US Census Bureau, 2012b). These differences are largely attributed to government supports or lack thereof, with the small declines found for African Americans and children credited to safety net programs, and the higher poverty among senior citizens and working adults related to high medical and childcare expenses. SPM poverty rates highlight the crucial role of government programs in alleviating poverty, but contrary to conservative claims US poverty rates remain high even with the inclusion of benefits.

Although supplemental measures reflect progress, more holistic approaches to defining and measuring poverty are being explored. Multidimensional indices that conceptualize poverty in terms of tangible (e.g., health, education, and income) and less tangible (e.g., dignity, social inclusion, opportunity, political power, quality of work, physical safety, and psychological well-being) indicators have gained favor internationally (Alkire, Roche, Santos, & Seth, 2011; Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, n.d.). For instance, the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative for the United Nations assesses acute poverty via deprivations in three areas: health (i.e., child mortality in family and nutrition), education (i.e., years of schooling and school attendance), and living standards (e.g., household electricity, drinking water, sanitation, and assets such as owning a refrigerator and having transportation; Alkire et al., 2011). Individuals and families are considered poor if deprivations are present in one-third or more of these dimensions. By assessing specific areas of need, social policies can be tailored to alleviate hardship in particular domains. This approach contrasts sharply from the singular focus on income that dominates US poverty measurement.

The United States stands apart even from other industrialized nations that rely on income-based measures. US poverty measurement is characterized as absolute because it is “fixed over time in real terms,” meaning that poverty thresholds are “nonresponsive to economic growth or changes in living standards” (Blank, 2008, p. 234). Conversely, many of our industrialized counterparts use relative measures that compare “people on a distribution of resources and then defines the poor as those who fall below the average-income threshold for the economy” (Keister & Southgate, 2012, p. 174). The European Union, for example, sets risk of poverty at 60% of median income (Blank, 2008). Relative approaches tend to be viewed as more progressive and justice-oriented than absolute measures because deprivation is defined by societal living standards, anchoring poverty in real terms to the well-being of the larger population. When viewed through this lens, poverty is a measure of “social and economic distance” rather than a static absolute standard (Haveman & Mullikin, 1999, p. 6).

The Politics of Poverty Measurement.

Relative conceptualizations have gained little traction in the United States, in part because reductions in poverty are difficult to gauge with relative measures. As Haveman (2009, p. 83) explains,

Absolute poverty standards have the advantage of allowing citizens to judge the effectiveness of antipoverty programs by whether the programs move families above the fixed standard; in contrast, poverty will decline und...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise for Women and Poverty
• Contemporary Social Issues
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• About the Author
• 1: Women and Poverty: An Ongoing Crisis
• 2: Structural Sources of Women's Poverty and Homelessness
• 3: Beliefs about Poverty, Wealth, and Social Class: Implications for Intergroup Relations and Social Policy
• 4: Welfare Reform at 15 and Beyond: How Are Low-Income Women and Families Faring?
• 5: Low-Income Women, Critical Resistance, and Welfare Rights Activism
• 6: Women and Economic Justice: Pitfalls, Possibilities, and Promise
• References
• Index