The Feminization of Poverty

by Goldberg, Gertrude Schaffner; Kremen, Eleanor

• ISBN13: 9780313264214
• ISBN10: 031326421X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1990-11-01
• Publisher: Praeger Pub Text

Summary

This study asks whether the feminization of poverty, the tendency of women and their families to become the majority of the poor, is unique to the United States, where the phenomenon was first "discovered." Seven industrialized nations, both capitalist and socialist, with different degrees of commitment to social welfare are compared: Canada, Japan, France, Sweden, Poland, the Soviet Union, and the United States. In each of the countries the authors analyze information about women, labor market conditions, equalization policies, social welfare programs, and demographic variables such as the rates of divorce and single parenthood. According to Goldberg and Kremen, it is possible to predict the feminization of poverty when three conditions are present: (1) insufficient efforts to reduce work place and wage inequities for women; (2) the absence or ineffectiveness of social welfare programs which can redress the cost, both economic and personal, of the dual role that women have assumed in industrialized societies; and (3) the presence of increasing rates of divorce and single motherhood. An array of labor market and social welfare programs in use in the six other industrialized nations are then reviewed by the authors for possible adaptation in the United States. This important work will be a valuable resource for scholars across the academic and professional disciplines of political science, sociology, economics, social work, and women's studies.

Table of Contents

The Feminization of Poverty: Discovered in America by Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg and Eleanor Kremen

The United States: Feminization of Poverty Amidst Plenty by Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg

Canada: Bordering on the Feminization of Poverty by Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg

Japan: A Special Case by June Axinn

Labor Market and Family Policy in France: An Intersecting Complex for Dealing with Poverty by Jane Jenson and Ruth Kantrow

Sweden: Promise and Paradox by Marguerite G. Rosenthal

Socialism: An Escape from Poverty? Women in European Russia by Eleanor Kremen

Poland: A Country of Conflicts by Sophie Wojciechowski

The Feminization of Poverty: Not Only in America by Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg and Eleanor Kremen

Index