Abstract
This article investigates the feminization of poverty prior to 1960 by focusing on three factors that contributed to the increase in the propensity to form female-headed households and to the poverty rate among such households. Compared with 1939, households headed by prime-age women in 1959 included fewer adults, thereby reducing earnings potential. The earnings level at which such women formed independent households was lower relative to the poverty line; and although higher earnings allowed more women to form independent households, the increase was not large enough to lift some of these households out of poverty.
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