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Author: Wilcox, Steven P.
Resulting in 2 citations.
1. Kniesner, Thomas J.
McElroy, Marjorie B.
Wilcox, Steven P.
Family Structure, Race, and the Hazards of Young Women in Poverty, or Getting Into Poverty Without a Husband and getting Out, With or Without
Discussion Paper No. 193, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University - Canberra, 1988
Cohort(s): Young Women
Publisher: Australian National University - Canberra
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Children; Family Structure; Marital Status; Mothers; Parents, Single; Poverty; Racial Differences; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

From 1970 to the early 1980s the population of adults of both sexes living in poverty in the United States increased by about 30 percent. The greater absolute increase in the number of women living in poverty during the period has been termed the feminization of poverty. This paper presents a micro theoretical and empirical analysis of changes in family structure over the last 15 years and their resulting effect, by race, on the poverty status of young women. The analysis uses the NLS of Young Women. The so-called feminization of poverty occurred almost solely because of the startling secular growth in the number of single mothers. Thus, the authors focus their efforts on quantifying the factors behind the movement of women into and out of single motherhood during the early stages of their adult lives. The statistical approach includes estimating multivariate proportional hazard functions for poverty entry and exit. The list of explanatory variables is poor and contains only variables that are truly pre-determined. It was found that even after controlling for family background, age, and measure of human capital accumulation, as well as for interstate variation in AFDC generosity, in per capita income, and in gender mix, young black women still enter poverty through the single motherhood at almost three times the rate of their white counterparts. Young black women have longer average spells of poverty because they not only enter poverty at higher rates but they exit the poverty associated with single motherhood more slowly. Even controlling for the variables of explanatory factors, the poverty exit rate for young black women is still only about two-thirds that of the young white women in these data. The authors conclude that, while AFDC generosity affects poverty rates, such programs have also trended in a direction that should have slowed the feminization of poverty and that aging tends to retard poverty entry more than it retards poverty exit. Because the US population of women is now aging, the authors expect the total number of poor single mothers with children to decline between now and the end of this century.
Bibliography Citation
Kniesner, Thomas J., Marjorie B. McElroy and Steven P. Wilcox. "Family Structure, Race, and the Hazards of Young Women in Poverty, or Getting Into Poverty Without a Husband and getting Out, With or Without." Discussion Paper No. 193, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University - Canberra, 1988.
2. Kniesner, Thomas J.
McElroy, Marjorie B.
Wilcox, Steven P.
Getting into Poverty Without a Husband, and Getting Out, With or Without
American Economic Review 78,2 (May 1988): 86-95.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1818103
Cohort(s): Young Women
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Family Structure; Mothers; Parents, Single; Poverty; Racial Differences

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Utilizing data from the NLS of Young Women, this research analyzed the poverty spells of young single mothers during the survey years 1968-1982. Findings include: (1) young black women are more likely than young white women to not only experience poverty but to stay in poverty; (2) changes in family structure account for nearly all entries into poverty with divorce the prevalent entry mode for white women and leaving the household of another adult the predominant mode for black women; (3) more young white women exit poverty via remarriage while black women typically rejoin either their parent's household or the household of another unrelated male adult; and (4) for both races, poverty status represented new poverty rather than poverty carried over from some previous family structure.
Bibliography Citation
Kniesner, Thomas J., Marjorie B. McElroy and Steven P. Wilcox. "Getting into Poverty Without a Husband, and Getting Out, With or Without." American Economic Review 78,2 (May 1988): 86-95.