The Feminization of Poverty: Only in America

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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 noticed. Seven industrialized nations, both capatalist 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, labour market conditions, equalization policies, social welfare programmes, 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 programmes which can redress the cost, coth 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 labour market and social welfare programmes 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.

Reviews

"This comprehensive and carefully organized collection provides an overview of the relationship between gender and economic stratification in 7 industrialized countries. Everywhere, as a Polish commentator notes, "men have too much power, and women too much work." Nevertheless, these studies reveal large differences in the circumstances of women in different countries, and help to illuminate the several developments in the labor market, the family and public policy which explain the extreme "feminization of poverty" in the United States."-Frances Fox Piven Graduate School The City University of New York
"A most fascinating, timely, and innovative study, this is the first work to examine the feminization of poverty in an international perspective. I am impressed with the wide range of countries included--not only Western European and North American nations, but Poland, the Soviet Union, and Japan. The scholar as well as the student will learn a great deal about the condition of women in each of these industrial nations and will gain comparative insight as well. One of the strengths of this book is that its authors are equally concerned with employment and with social welfare policies--a balanced approach that is all too frequently missing from social policy analyses. Their formulations of both problems and resolutions are both stimulating and sensible."- Frank Riessman Co-director, National Self-Help Clearinghouse Co-editor, Social Policy Magazine
"The authors show convincingly that the feminization of poverty, although most advanced in America, is an international trend. By examining the same set of factors in seven countries, they unravel the reasons why. Their special contribution is the integration of developments in each country's labor market with gender, social policy, and inequality. Lucid, careful, and systematic, the book builds a compelling explanation for the needless impoverishment experienced by millions of American women and offers a sensible, realistic agenda for its reduction."-Michael B. Katz Stanley I. Sheerr Professor of History Director, Urban Studies Program University of Pennsylvania
This comprehensive and carefully organized collection provides an overview of the relationship between gender and economic stratification in 7 industrialized countries. Everywhere, as a Polish commentator notes, "men have too much power, and women too much work." Nevertheless, these studies reveal large differences in the circumstances of women in different countries, and help to illuminate the several developments in the labor market, the family and public policy which explain the extreme "feminization of poverty" in the United States.-Frances Fox Piven Graduate School The City University of New York

Author Bio

GERTRUDE SCHAFFNER GOLDBERG is Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Social Policy at the Adelphi University School of Social Work. She keynoted the Nordisk Forum in 1988, a Scandinavian follow-up to the United Nations Conference on Women held in Nairobi, Kenya in 1985. She is also the author and co-author of books and articles on social welfare policy. ELEANOR KREMEN is an Associate Professor at the Adelphi University School of Social Work. She is the Educational Director of the Social Services Center, a field training site for students. She has written and co-authored articles on social work practice and policy for women, poverty and drug abuse.