Women, Children, and Poverty: Public Policies and Female-Headed Families in Industrialized Countries

Abstract

Single-parent, female-headed families are at risk of poverty and are causing concern in all advanced industrialized countries. A committee set up by the British government in the early 1970s to study the problems of these families issued a well-publicized report in July 1974.1 Although the recommendations made in the report have not yet been carried out, discussion continues about the need for more concerted attention to this problem. The Commission of the European Communities launched a major effort in the late 1970s aimed at assessing the extent of poverty and the composition and characteristics of the poor in member countries. Its report, issued in 1981, states that the incidence of poverty in much of the Community is or far above average in households with a female head, one-parent families with more than one child (overwhelmingly female-headed), and households with a head, whether aged or not, who is not in the labor force.2