The Feminization Of Poverty In The United States

However, the contributions of women to the economy have gone unrecognized and unvalued. Also, there is unequal opportunities between men and women in the workforce, which means that women do not receive an opportunity at demonstrating their ability to lift themselves from poverty and similar issues, and their options to improve their lives are limited or nonexistent. However, I feel that what men do not realize when oppressing women is that women make up half of the world's population. This ultimately means that women also make up half the workforce. A nation that limits women and discriminates against them cannot reach it's full potential or productiveness. On the other hand, if a country's government, businesses, and overall, the communities invest in women, developing countries are less likely to be striken by poverty. Women are educated to wisely manage the money that they earn, which results in less poverty because they will know how to save and spend her money properly. To add on, economic empowered women raise healthier and better educated children, which results in children that will continue to manage money wisely, with their mother's guidance, and ultimately this would lead to a decrease in poverty. Economic empowerment means not only reducing

Sociological imagination highlights how society places the two sexes in unequal positions of wealth, power and privilege. It is therefore very useful to look beyond the gender itself and see the global issues associated with it. There are differences regarding the type of gender in different countries, the levels of gender inequality and the amount of violence that are necessary to maintain both systems of difference and domination. Women were always viewed as weak, sensitive, dependent and unintelligent so the society formed a view that they have to sit home, do the housework and raise the children. They were always considered less skilled, incapable of doing a hard work and even now women are more likely to be paid less than man. Women are more likely to be abused and they are less likely to have access to formal power. According to the United Nations, “At least one in five of world’s female population has been physically or sexually abused by a man at some time in their life” (UNFPA, 2000: p. 25).

|inequality between gender and class and also, the extent of poverty in the current British context. I will also cover causes of |

The United States exhibits the trend of the “feminization of poverty”, a powerful phrase coined by Diana Pierce to exhibit the increasing number of women and children in poverty. Among the causes of this problem is a “dual labor market that actively discriminates against female workers” (Leventman 1988: 197). The average American woman is only paid 77 cents to every working man’s dollar (Alter 2014). Men today make more than women, despite women having the same amount of educational achievement. In fact, in 2011, men with only a bachelor’s degree made more than women with graduate degrees (Alter 2014). In 2013, full-time working men made $50,033 compared to just $39,157 for full-time working women (Cook 2014). In America today, the problem of poverty in the lives of women and children is attributed to different aspects of gender stratification as well as gender inequality. Poverty will continue until women are equal to men in terms of power, wealth, and other

Ann Levine and Naomi Neft's article "Women in Today's World" asserts that although the status of females in developed countries has vastly improved with society's movement toward a more gender-equal condition, the majority of women remain in a dire state of oppression. Women are more impoverished, illiterate, unemployed, and more destitute than men. In spite of some women's improvements under developed countries' more progressive, gender-equal regimes, education, literacy rates, employment, civil rights, health, and public representation remain substandard for most of the world's females.

Women are more prone to live in low income circumstances than men, hence introducing the social problem of gender discrimination. Women have been discriminated in the workplace over time in that they are paid less than men in specific jobs and are not seen to be ‘suited’ to particular jobs, especially in the manufacturing and trade industries. Marxist feminist Margaret Benston believed that women were oppressed by capitalism in that they were treated almost as a back-up, or secondary option of cheap labour that enabled profits to be kept up. ‘In 1994, 6.41 million women were in low-paid jobs and on average women’s full-time gross weekly pay was 72 percent of that of men’(Kane, 2003:115).

The phrase or term "Feminization of Poverty" was coined by an American sociologist Dianna Pearle in the late 1970s. The term describes the growing trend of an increasing number of poor, single women head of household living in poverty. Feminization of poverty is the growing trend where the majority of the population living in poverty in the U S are women. Women are vulnerable to be living in poverty because they are more likely to bear the economic cost of caring for the children as head of the household. Added to this, women are paid less than men when they are employed with the same qualification doing the same job. In fact, according to Wiltz, T. (2015) in 2014, women working full time were paid 79 cents for every dollar men were paid, a

The culture of poverty is the belief that a country’s dominate culture is what determines the level of industrialization. For instance, in third (and some second) world countries, families that are barely able to farm out an existence are less likely to experiment with new techniques. Since they are unable to buy better equipment they are left with sticking to the way that has worked for generations. Some cultures also teach that if a person is satisfied with this life, then they will receive a higher status in the next life. Feminization of poverty is a condition in the U.S where low income households are often headed by females. This is often contributed to unwed pregnancy, divorce, and the fact that women usually get paid less than men.

On June 10th 1963, the Equal Pay Act was passed. This was the first time that it became illegal for women to be paid less wages than men, but this paper will argue in the U.S. today the gender wage gap still exists. The definition of gender wage gap as stated by the U.S. government is defined as women who work full time or salary based jobs who receive less earnings than their male counterparts who work equal level jobs (“Equal Pay,” n.d.).[] This analysis will focus on the years of 2012 to 2014, and in these years it is clear that the gender wage gap exists. The topic of gender wage gap sociologically important for many reasons. The most obvious being that women who are in a position that requires them to provide for others will have less money than they should based on their job and skill set. Secondly, being that if women are making less than men for the same amount of skill and work, the workplace is telling the woman that the man is more valuable for the same work, thus saying that the man is superior to the woman. All in all, the gender wage gap has poor sociological implications, and the data analysis in the following paper will prove its existence.

“They” say, “We’ve come a long way baby!” “They” are both correct and incorrect at the same time. While it is true that women have come a long way from June Cleaver and the typical 50’s housewife to the modern two parent working household, statistically, it would take women approximately one extra day of work per week to earn the same as their male counterpart. So, while women have begun to work in higher paying professional and managerial jobs that before were typically held by men; they are paid less. This is gender discrimination and is commonly known as the Gender Wage Gap. There are many arguments as to why there is a wage gap between men and women; there are those who argue that women are taking lower-paying jobs, so they can attend to the needs of their families. Others argue that women are purposely choosing fields that pay less. One thing is clear, though: a gender wage gap exists, and if steps are not taken to remedy this situation, women may never see equal pay for equal work.

In the reading, there were a ton of definitions and clarifications being made. There was a breakdown of each economical class, poor, middle, and wealthy class. Americans tend to focus on “racial and ethnic groups, but not for economic groups,” but there is so much more (Payne pp. 37-43). There are two types up poverty generational and situational. Generational is where there are more than two generations that are poor, and situational has to do with a life-altering event (Payne pp. 47).

Poverty is a global issue that has been at the forefront of economic debate for over a century. Left wing politicians and anti-poverty organisations around the world still adamantly fight for a more equal economic split, pointing towards research showing the disadvantages poverty creates for those living in it. This research has grown rapidly since the 1970’s and many different factors have been targeted in the attempt to examine the

Poverty has increasingly become a noticeable issue worldwide over the past couple of decades. With the middle class steadily decreasing, considerable amounts of people are becoming part of the lower class, and even more of our world’s population are beginning to live in poverty. It is important to understand there are different definitions of poverty, and that is largely determined by what each country’s government determines as the cut off of poverty, otherwise known as the ‘poverty line’. Although some people could live above the poverty line, and still be struggling financially, it goes unrecognized by most research collection. However, what was initially noticed around the 1970’s is that there was a significant rise in women’s poverty statistics. More female-headed households were living in poverty, and a majority of those women belonged to a minority. This recognizable trend has been deemed the ‘feminization of poverty’, which according research is not only a growing problem in North America, but several other countries around the world. Information gathered about this issue in the United States shows that female-headed households is by far the fastest growing type of family structure, and due to the fact there is a growing poverty level amongst this group, it now means that approximately half of the all the poor in the United States live in a women-headed family and household. (Gimenez, 1999, p. 336) The biggest question when is comes to this particular topic is why?

About 1.4 billion human beings around the world-one in five people- are at risk of absolute poverty. Although the economy has sustained a slow recuperation in 2012, poverty rates for most groups were identical from 2011, leaving poverty among women and children at or near historically high levels. Poverty rates for women and children are higher than poverty rates for men and especially higher for women of color, women who are the head of the family, foreign-born, and women 65 and older living alone. The big gender gap has been unchanged for the decade, undermining women’s ability to support themselves and their families. Difference in rates of employment and single parenthood, education and age groups play key roles in such gender gaps in poverty.

Poverty is an issue that is faced by multitudes of people around the world. Poverty itself is defined as, “the state of being poor” (Merriam Webster). According to Sara S. McLanahan, of Princeton University, “In the United States, poverty is defined as not having enough income to pay for basic needs, such as food, clothing and shelter. Poverty is a family attribute. In other words, if a family is classified as poor, all the members of that family are also poor” (McLanahan, n.d.). The U.S. Census Bureau, in 2013 shows, “there were 45.3 million people in poverty” just in the United States (U.S Census Bureau, 2013). From those living in poverty, in the same year, “the ratio of the female poverty rate to the male poverty rate was 1.2---women were 20 percent more likely to be poor than men” (Mykyta, 2013, p. 2). Also, “of all people categorized as in poverty in 2011, approximately 56 percent were women” (Mykyta, 2013, p. 2). Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, director of the Human Development Report, portrays a simple truth, “women are poorer than men” (Fukuda-Parr, 1999, p. 99).