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

This important text explores the deep relationships between poverty, health/mental health conditions, and widespread social problems as they affect the lives of low-income women. A robust source of both empirical findings and first-person descriptions by poor women of their living conditions, it exposes cyclical patterns of structural and environmental stressors contributing to impaired physical and mental health. Psychological conditions (notably depression and PTSD), substance use and abuse, domestic and gun-related violence, relationship instability, and hunger in low-income communities, especially among women of color, are discussed in detail. In terms of solutions, the book’s contributors identify areas for major policy reform and make potent recommendations for community outreach, wide-scale intervention, and sustained advocacy. Among the topics covered:• The intersection of women’s health and poverty.• Poverty, personal experiences of violence, and mental health.• The role of social support for women living in poverty.• The logic of exchange sex among women living in poverty.• Physical safety and neighborhood issues.• Exploring the complex intersections between housing environments and health behaviors among women living in poverty. A stark reminder that health should be considered a basic human right, Poverty in the United States: Women's Voices is a necessary reference for research professionals particularly interested in women’s studies, HIV/AIDS prevention, poverty, and social policy.

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.

A study of the relationship between women's poverty and health, looking at causes and ways of measurement and including a discussion of the oppression of women and mental health.

This critical new volume takes a hard look at the well-being of poor women in North America. It provides a rare opportunity to focus on one of the most pressing, but neglected social issues of our time--the injurious health consequences of impoverishment among women. A distinguished group of experts reviews the adequacy of our social and health policies and comments on a wide range of issues relating to poverty, gender, and health. Topics include the diversity in the population of poor women, the health and safety conditions of the work environments of working-poor, and factors that influence health conditions among poor and racial/ethnic women.

This collection of essays addresses the broadening array of issues on the agenda of the women's health movements of the 1980s and 1990s, just as a previous collection, "Women and Health: The Politics of Sex in Medicine", gathered contributions from the earlier wave of the women's health movement in the 1970s. The papers in both volumes are selected from the "International Journal of Health Services", edited by Vicente Navarro. The essays in this volume were originally published in the 1980s and early 1990s. Together, they present a framework for understanding the struggles over women's health that have occurred in this time period, and provide specific analyses of women's health in relation to race/ethnicity and class, the work of health care, the health of women workers, international reproductive health, sexuality, AIDS, and public health policy.