Over the last few decades in the United States, the poverty rate for female-headed families has been about five times the poverty rate for other family types. This paper addresses the question of why, in general, female-headed families are so much poorer than other families. Recognizing that...

This paper has investigated the relationship between poverty and family type, as reflected in the marital status and gender of the head of the family number of factors have been identified as important determinants of poverty for all family types: education and work experience of family members,...

Over the last few decades in the United States, the poverty rate for female-headed families (with no husband present) has been about three times the poverty rate for male-headed families (with no wife present) and about six times the poverty rate for married- couple families. This paper...