A ‘Pauperization of Motherhood’? Single Motherhood and Women's Poverty over Time

Abstract

ABSTRACT While the relationship between single motherhood and poverty generates a great deal of debate, little research explores mothers' poverty over time or the effects of rising single motherhood on women's poverty over time. This paper uses Current Population Survey data to assess the extent to which mothers' relative poverty rates increased throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s. It goes on to ask how single motherhood affects women's poverty rates over time. Results show that mothers' poverty rates increased from the mid-1970s until the early 1990s, after which time mothers' poverty rates generally no longer in-creased–neither in an absolute sense, nor relative to the poverty rates of others. Regarding causes of women's poverty over time, increases in single motherhood only slightly raised women's poverty rates in the 1990s. Increases in women's employment and educational attainment, however, played an important role in reducing women's poverty rates. The paper concludes by applying these results to debates about single motherhood and welfare reform.