Pearce, Diane. "The feminization of poverty: Women, work, and welfare." Urban and social change review (1978).Poverty is rapidly becoming a problem for a woman.

Diane Pierce

Pearce, Diane. "The feminization of poverty: Women, work, and welfare." Urban and social change review (1978).

Poverty is rapidly becoming a problem for a woman. While many women gain financial independence from their spouses through participation in labor (and in some cases through divorce), for many, the cost of this independence is their poverty and dependence on welfare. Among the 1g75 population, nearly two-thirds of the 15 million poor people over the age of 16 are women. (Census Bureau, 1976) In some groups, this imbalance is even greater: more than 70% of poor elderly people are women. In 1975, black women accounted for only 6.1% of the total population, but accounted for 17.0% of the poor that year. (Women Affairs Bureau, 1977)

The economic status of women has declined in the past few decades. At the same time, some important and relevant demographic changes have occurred (increased number of longevity people, increased number of divorces, and increased number of illegitimate children). Perhaps the most striking of these trends is the increase in the number of female-headed households; the proportion of all female-headed households rose from 10.1% in 1950 to 14% in 1976, up nearly 40% in a generation. (Census Bureau, 1976; Women Bureau, 1977) Meanwhile, the economic well-being of this growing group has declined. The median income ratio of female-headed households to male-headed households has steadily dropped from 56% in 1950 to 47% in 1974. In addition, between 1950 and 1976, the number of households headed by women doubled. Today, almost half of the poor households are headed by women. (Census Bureau, 1976; Bureau of Women's Affairs, 1977)

Paradoxically, this decline occurs in other trends that indicate the potential for improvement of women's status—trends such as women's labor force participation, authorized affirmative action and increased employment opportunities for well-educated women. However, women's income, relative to men, decreased; this dropped from 1960 to 1974, the female/male income ratio for full-time civilians fell from 0.61 to 0.57.

In 1950, the unemployment rate for women was only slightly higher than that of men (5.7 vs. 5.1), and by 1976, the unemployment rate was 8.6, while for men was 7.0. (Women's Bureau, 1977) In addition, if workers under the age of 20 are not included, the gap will be even greater because the unemployment rate of men and women is very high; In 1974, the unemployment rate of women aged 20 and older was almost 1.5 times that of men. (U.S. Census Bureau, 1976)

In summary, women account for an increasingly large proportion of economic disadvantage . What these statistics do not show is that while many women are poor because they live in poor male-headed families, more and more people are becoming poor themselves. I will focus on the latter group here, that is, women who are poor because they are women. While the reason for the poverty of many women is not due to gender, or in addition to gender, in this article, I will focus on the question: What are the economic and social consequences of higher poverty rates as women? This does not mean that the problems of millions of women in poor and impoverished families are trivial or unimportant; rather, most of the contents mentioned here can also apply to their problems. In particular, I will explore two aspects of the feminization of poverty: (1) the role of different sources of income—labor income, public and private transfer income—in allowing women to suffer poverty, and (2) the role of welfare systems in making women suffer long-term poverty.

The early immigrants entered the urban labor market and gradually improved their status, and women have always been at the bottom. (Koser and Rokov, 1970; Darian, 1976; Oyt, 1976; Treman and Terrell, 1970; Sut and Miller, 1973; Blinder, 1973; As Oppenheimer (1970_), in 1973, it reached nearly 40% in 1920, and is now acquired at the expense of economic progress of women's workers. That is to say, , in the "slums" of occupational segregation, the demand for cheap labor and the demand for female labor became synonymous .

The rapid growth of employment opportunities, especially since World War 11, has been at low wages, dead end industries and occupations, and is open to women. Once inside the labor market, women are restricted from doing these jobs and are restricted to entering Joe, who earns higher (but traditionally men). Or improve the career ladder. Therefore, women have fewer occupations than men; 60% of women engage in 10 occupations. Furthermore, this concentration has remained stable over time. In 1900, 14 of the 17 17 occupations dominated by women were still dominated by women. The apartheid index formulated by Gross (1968) shows that the occupational segregation of women today is the same as the end of the Victorian era.

Not only does women suffer limited career opportunities, but their economic well-being is the price paid by pink collar women (Howe, 1977) and other women’s settlements (textile and electronic factories, banks and offices, home services and day care). Not long ago, Knudsen (1969) pointed out that the higher the proportion of female workers in the occupation, the lower the average income of the occupation. Fuchs (1971) insisted that most income gaps between men and women could be interpreted as different jobs that men and women do. In short, women are concentrated in relatively few, often lower-paid occupations. Some specific examples are given in the following table:

The cost of women suffering from occupational isolation is difficult to understand. In 1970, a family of four had an income of about $3,700, and 6 million women worked full-time throughout the year, with an annual income of less than $4,000. These women are concentrated in some of the lowest-paid jobs: family service workers, farm workers, sales staff. (Shortridge, 1976)

Regarding the issue of increasing women's poverty, Sohill (1976) proposed two sets of research results, which labeled occupational isolation. First, a study done by the Urban Institute calculated the income function of female heads of households as if they were male but otherwise had the same age, race, education, and residence characteristics. The study found that in other similar situations, if a male is a female head of household, she would earn 36% of the income. If male labor force participation characteristics, such as working hours, are also added to the formula, women's income will also increase, but much less (13%). Sohill also calculated the long-term institutional restrictions on women’s income by occupational isolation.

classification occupations detailed (three-digit) census codes are mainly male (80% or more workers are male), mainly female (30% or fewer workers are male), or mixed, her calculations are female high school graduates, aged 25-34, working full-time for less than $3,000 a year. She found that only 20% of occupations dominated by men are at poverty level, but more than half of occupations dominated by women (54%) are at poverty level. (Sawhill, 1976)

Although similar roles in the labour force preceded the racial, immigration, and ethnic groups utilize cheap labor—especially in the first generation of participating urban industrial labor, women differ from those of these past new entrants. Women are permanent temporary workers. That is, employers can do women’s (employee’s) advantages while attracting them into the workforce (helping job ads read “different, fun jobs, young companies”) but at the same time reduce their commitment to a personal career idea (“Get Acapulco vacations and send your kids to college”). As long as women, as well as their employers, think their jobs are temporary/secondary and their families and families are their permanent/main commitments, they are unlikely to engage in expensive activities such as participating in union and equity lawsuits, demanding progress or skill development, or even just working long enough to qualify for pensions.

The employer's interest in gaining loyal but not long-term employees also explains their lack of interest and even their enthusiasm for developing high-quality daycare, even for welfare mothers. Such services may allow for a nearly uninterrupted working life, and/or commit to individual employers a period of time long enough to obtain qualifications, demand promotions, or otherwise become expensive.

provides day care means supporting women to join the workforce for a long time, as well as accepting women, including mothers, as workers whose main economic contribution is not in child care. On the other hand, women who exit the labor market or quit their jobs due to child care issues will be considered “less dedicated” workers without quality day care. In turn, their low dependence on the labor force is considered to be the reason for their disadvantage. Their interrupted work life also makes upward mobility difficult; they never gain qualifications and their career development is affected. In particular, as surcharge benefits account for an increasing proportion of employers’ labor costs (estimated up to 40%), workers deprived of such benefits due to temporary and/or part-time and/or short-term status are becoming increasingly economically attractive. Temporary workers are cheap workers.

What is related to the "temporary" status of women is that they tend to work part-time. Although part-time jobs are obviously a preference for many women, especially middle-class women, there are also many women who prefer full-time jobs but cannot do so. This is partly due to changes in the economic structure. Many service industries account for the recent increase in labor demand, especially for women labour 3, are those who require one or two part-time workers rather than an 8 shift (e.g., restaurants, transportation services and retail stores). Localities often distinguish part-time and full-time workers, not only in terms of wages and benefits, but also in terms of promotion opportunities and skills improvement opportunities.

In addition to lowering wages, women have higher unemployment rates and have to wait longer between jobs. These modes. etc., or what Verensky (1961) calls “the lazy history of work”, leads many women to become softened and leave the labor force. Women are listed as discouraged workers almost twice as many as men: neither working nor actively seeking jobs. (Bureau for Women's Affairs, 1977)

Finally, it should be noted that the effects of occupational isolation and wage discrimination are so strong that they tend to overwhelm other types of disadvantages. Therefore, there is some evidence that black women earn slightly higher than white women with education and occupations, apparently because black women tend to have more financial returns with work experience than white women (probably because it has fewer interruptions than average white women). (Farley, 1977) Obviously, it is an unimportant consideration for female race when determining economic status.

Private Transfer Income

The second source of income to be considered here is private transfer. For a time, most private transfers were indeed private, that is, within the nuclear family. Working husbands give their wives a portion of their salary to pay for their families and children (ren). With rising divorce rates, it is estimated that about one-third of marriages will fail; in addition, they will fail earlier, resulting in early marriage/early divorced young mothers with very young children. According to the needs of children, the transfer of internal resources is institutionalized in the form of child support (and sometimes alimony). Therefore, for many women, the cost of getting rid of the marriage contract is very high, because the probability of economic experts continuing to transfer at the same rate is very low.

In a study conducted by the Office of the Public Welfare Department responsible for executing child support for welfare mothers, found that only 22% of spouses fully fulfilled all their obligations; half did not contribute. In addition, in two-thirds of AFDC cases, there is no formal or informal child support agreement that needs to be enforced. (NCSS, 1977) Partly because of this problem, partly because fathers are either unable to obtain or have no resources themselves, and therefore focus on increasing child support for women, but with little success. In December 1976, after nearly a year of national efforts, the total funds collected averaged about $6 per recipient, and about 1% of AFDC cases closed that month were closed due to child subsidies.(Ibid)

is evident that , especially among AFDC mothers, the lack of child support is partly due to fathers’ own poverty, as one study estimates that more than one-third of people are unemployed, nearly one-fifth have a bad record, and most are engaged in unskilled or semi-dead occupations. (Nlcol, 1975) has support; one-third of AFDC parents without support have college education and one-third have high school diplomas. (Nicol, 1975) This power to seek support will not be realized because social norms allow people to stop supporting their children when they leave them.

Poor fathers never monopolize and do not support it, because not providing (or stopping it after a few years) is a common practice in American society. Finally, women who serve as household heads are unlikely to become recipients of intergenerational resource transfers. While many parents help their adult children during times of financial need or crisis, single or divorced daughters are unlikely to accept these transfers. Even if a woman gets such help in marriage, sanctioning of a marriage often involves the sale of “houses and other property.” It is also true that while women have the same overall secondary education level as men, their distribution is more concentrated around the median. Therefore, not only are women with very low education levels also low, but fewer women continue to be educated after high school than men. Investment in daughters is lower than higher education in sons, which deprives women of the source of intergenerational resource transfer.

Women and Public Transfer Public Transfer

includes all unemployed income obtained from the government and can be divided into two basic types: income obtained due to participation in the labor force, and income obtained as support for small income, regardless of previous employment status. Women are generally underrepresented among beneficiaries in terms of work-related welfare, and even underrepresented among the allowances received. Therefore, while women are 52% of the beneficiaries of the social security system (which is underrepresented due to the highly skewed gender distribution of older people), they receive only 46% of the benefits. (Bell Company, 1973)

However, unemployment insurance is somewhat like a mystery. According to data cited by officials, women account for 38% of the total recipients (Dahm, 1973), which is slightly higher than their share in the labor market (40%). However, many factors suggest the fact that more women are not covered at all, or are covered in very limited ways. First, some occupations are completely excluded, such as home service workers (i.e., almost all women, or 1.7 million workers) and farm workers (i.e., 7 million people). Second, unemployment insurance is based on "will to work", which is usually defined as "will to work full-time". Many of them are excluded from because many women need part-time jobs in the industry. Third, under the same strict logic, many states completely deprive pregnant women of their rights, regardless of individual differences in physical ability or willingness to work, nor of the month of pregnancy.

Fourth, many women work in the "informal economy" and their work is not protected because it is semi-legal or illegal, marginal or barter (prostitute, babysitter, woman typing at home). Finally, many female workers appear to use AFDC instead as unemployment insurance (see below).

Other forms of “work”-related income transfer programs support so few women that it is difficult to compare the resulting relative inequality. For example, are the free medical care and educational benefits of veterans the reason for their low male poverty rate ? A inevitable question of policy interests is whether the poverty incidence among women serving in the armed forces will decrease, obviously, as may be the case for men entering the labour force through the military.(Ornstein, 1976) Just like the impact of black lung coverage on miners, the welfare programs of the “brown lung” and textile mills’ women’s workforce will have a measurable impact on women’s poverty (in this case due to work-related poor health and the consequent uncompensated unemployment)?

When discussing public aid, that is, public transfers are not conditioned on previous labor experience, first needs to determine the degree and adequacy of such public aid . Although the number of people receiving AFDC has risen sharply over the past decade, as a population proportion, it has remained stable at around 5%. (NCSS, 1977) However, welfare levels have been declining; on the basis of 1967 (=100), from 1974 to 1976, welfare fell from $139 to $135, or about 1.4% per year. In 1977, the actual average payment amount per household was $235, or about $75 per recipient. Even by very conservative state standards, welfare levels are not enough. Each state determines its own demand standards based on cost-of-living estimates, but this standard is not necessarily tied to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ poverty income boundaries. Even so, the state does not need to provide the families concerned with the full amount of the minimum required by the state. Additionally, many states set an arbitrary highest number regardless of household size.

Each state determines its own demand standards based on cost of living estimates, but this standard is not necessarily linked to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ poverty income boundaries. Even so, the state does not need to provide the relevant families with the full amount the country has determined to need. Additionally, many states set an arbitrary highest number regardless of household size. As a result, in Natronali, 23% of AFDC cases received total cash benefits below 40% of the poverty line (adjusted based on family composition, etc.), 24% received benefits, putting them between 40% and 70% of the poverty line, with nearly half of AFDC recipients receiving benefits less than 70% of the poverty line. (Joint Economic Commission, 1976; data reference 1974) Even the cash equivalents in calculators, the highest welfare levels in 10 states were below 75% of the poverty line in 1974. (Joint Economic Commission, 1976) Finally, if you compare the levels of poverty among recipients before and after receiving benefits, it is relatively few to get rid of poverty through the AFDC: while 92% of families have received poverty.

worked when they were 15 years old or younger (WIiiiams, 1975). Combined with the data mentioned above, it is obvious that the typical woman who receives benefits is or used to be a worker. Welfare takes a different nature if people do not regard welfare recipients as single mothers who “lost” their (male) source of financial support, but rather as unemployed vulnerable workers. In short, From this perspective, welfare is a kind of unemployment compensation for poor women, but there is a little difference. While welfare has the same economic function as unemployment compensation, temporarily supporting workers who have unvoluntarily unemployed, thus reducing the pressure on economic unemployment, welfare is a privilege (no matter how suspicious) rather than a right . This has a significant impact on both recipients and future employers; welfare supports a low wage, mainly women, whose labor pools are so stigmatized, harassed and degenerate that many are eager to trade welfare poverty for wage poverty.

The permanent transformation from welfare recipients to workers is becoming very difficult due to the way income ignores work. In 1967, Congress asked states not to impose a 100% tax on recipients’ income, but to ignore one-third of all income and employment-related expenses. Although this re-ced actual tax rate is about 40%, other populations will not face this steep interest rate until their income exceeds $40,000. (Levitan, Rennes, and Mowick, 1972) Even so, tax rates force recipients to be in such a situation that it is nearly impossible for them to escape from welfare.It does this in two ways: first, the comprehensive value of cash benefits, food stamps and medical benefits of benefits, plus regardless of income, makes it necessary for the recipient to earn far more than the maximum allowed amount to reach an equal standard of living; second, tax subsidies and increased wages for paying poverty levels.

Appel (1971) estimates that in Michigan, a person can earn $669 a month and maintain welfare benefits, and needs $904 a month to buy the equivalent of welfare subsidized food, child care, and health care. Similarly, there is a "level" in obtaining benefits: resignation is often beneficial because you have too high income to get benefits and then return to work at the same salary. Even with high tax rates, the total welfare plan is higher than the low or poverty-level wages without non-monetary benefits. (Gavinkel, 1977) 5 This should not mean that neglecting income is not an improvement, but rather that they expand those groups whose jobs are not enough to get out of welfare or poverty. As we will see, few women on the AFDC have access to independent skills and education.

In addition to encouraging continued or continued enjoyment of benefits during work, the welfare system also encourages that benefits given during welfare are lower than the level the state declares they need. About half of the states do not pay the full demand standard, resulting in more than 62% of AFDC banks’ budgets acknowledging unmet needs (NCSS, 1974, Table 55); any income that reaches the demand level is usually ignored completely.

In short, income neglect and rank drives welfare recipients to work, low-wage workers get benefits, which may be the modern Spin Hamland plan. (Polanyl, 1969) That is to say, employers have no reason to raise wages, because low-wage workers are not scarce, and those who receive benefits are not very motivated. However, there is a great motivation to lower wages below living standards, as workers will receive the difference, at least at the minimum compensation, through benefits. Therefore, creating low-wage jobs is subsidized by benefits, making profitable production and services, otherwise the production costs are too high. This creates a class of workers who are forced to receive benefits because their wages are too low, while the benefit recipients are forced to work because of insufficient benefits. Since the promulgation of the Poor Law, welfare organizations have tried to force people to work. This is not only through stigmatizing the poor, such as the 17th-century Pennsylvanians who had to wear a "P" on their sleeves (for the poor), and the tendency to be insufficient for welfare such as "not qualified" that no recipients get more than the worst workers. This is also achieved through coercion. Workhouses and workhouses were the nineteenth century methods; today's poor are forced to register. Although WIN does not force all recipients to work, for many, its implicit promise of poverty alleviation is a cruel scam. WIN has fueled women’s poverty in several ways, each of which is about enforcing rather than removing barriers to women’s labour market.

First of all, WIN makes a lot of promises, but very few for most women. Although many women who receive benefits must register for work, there are several stages between registration and employment: certification, determination of service needs, training, employment placement, etc. Therefore, although 1175,800 people were mandatory in November 1975, only 6,900 people left WIN to work that month (including those who worked on their own, not because of WIN:NCSS, 1976). The number of people who receive training is relatively small, mostly male and white, that is, those with the least racial and gender disabilities in the labor market. (Levitan, et al. a/., 1972)

's policy on increasing labor force participation by poor feminization and welfare mothers is that gender cannot be ignored. That is to say, men's poverty and women's poverty are different problems and require different solutions. For men, Pubim is more of a high dependence burden: in the income experiment in New Jersey, the average number of children per family was 4 (Holimer, 1976), while the national AFDC-UP family averaged 4.4. In comparison, the average AFDC female household heads is 3.1 people.(NCSS, 1976; see Feynman, New d) Thus, male poverty is often a welfare issue, that is, some kind of family allowance for those who are burdened with raising burdens. However, for women, the problem is more about the labor market.

For most welfare women, going to work, or even working full-time, is unlikely to be a way to get rid of poverty. Once welfare policy begins to view female welfare workers as vulnerable workers, it can begin to develop appropriate intervention plans at the individual level (e.g., welfare in traditional male blue occupations).

Without these changes, we will continue to build a "workhouse without walls" whose residents will become more predominant women who are trapped in poverty due to welfare poverty and institutionalized labor marginalization.