Brings together the words of welfare mothers, activists and advocates, as well as scholars in a poignant and powerful challenge to the impoverishment of women.

Analyzes the impact of social service cutbacks, changes in the job market, and victim-blaming myths like the Black matriarchy theses of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and George Gilder.

Find out how welfare reform has affected women living at the poverty level Women, Work, and Poverty presents the latest information on women living at or below the poverty level and the changes that need to be made in public policy to allow them to rise above their economic hardships. Using a wide range of research methods, including in-depth interviews, focus groups, small-scale surveys, and analysis of personnel records, the book explores different aspects of women’s poverty since the passage of the 1986 welfare reform bill. Anthropologists, economists, political scientists, sociologists, and social workers examine marriage, divorce, children and child care, employment and work schedules, disabilities, mental health, and education, and look at income support programs, such as welfare and unemployment insurance. Women, Work, and Poverty illuminates the changes in the causes of women’s poverty following welfare reform in the United States, using up-to-date research that’s both qualitative and quantitative. Taking racial and ethnic diversity into account, the book’s contributors examine new findings on the feminization of poverty, the role of children and the lack of child care as an obstacle to employment, labor market policies that can reduce poverty and improve gender wage equality, sex and race segregation in the labor market, and the low quality of jobs available to low income women. Women, Work, and Poverty examines: marriage, motherhood, and work pay equity and living wage reforms community resources welfare status and child care acquiring higher education advancing women of color income security repaying debt after divorce gender differences in spendable income women’s job loss Women, Work, and Poverty is an invaluable aid for academics working in social work, social policy, women’s studies, economics, sociology, and political science, and for policy researchers, anti-poverty activists, and women’s leaders.

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

The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.

The first book to study women's poverty over the life course, this wide-ranging collection focuses on the economic condition of single mothers and single elderly women--while also considering partnered women and immigrants--in eight wealthy but diverse countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In a rich analysis of labor market and social welfare sectors, Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg and a team of outstanding international contributors conclude that both living-wage employment and government provision of adequate benefits and services are necessary if lone women are to achieve a socially acceptable living standard. Taken together, the chapters extend a feminist critique of welfare state theories and chart nations' disparate progress against poverty -- probing, for instance, how Sweden emerged a leader in the prevention of women's poverty while the United States continues to lag. By identifying the social and economic policies that enable women to live independently, Poor Women in Rich Countries provides nothing less than a blueprint for abolishing women's poverty.