Women, Work, and Poverty
Women, Work, and Poverty

Author: Heidi I. Hartmann

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1135803161

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Find out how welfare reform has affected women living at the poverty level Women, Work, and Poverty presents the latest information on women living at or below the poverty level and the changes that need to be made in public policy to allow them to rise above their economic hardships. Using a wide range of research methods, including in-depth interviews, focus groups, small-scale surveys, and analysis of personnel records, the book explores different aspects of women’s poverty since the passage of the 1986 welfare reform bill. Anthropologists, economists, political scientists, sociologists, and social workers examine marriage, divorce, children and child care, employment and work schedules, disabilities, mental health, and education, and look at income support programs, such as welfare and unemployment insurance. Women, Work, and Poverty illuminates the changes in the causes of women’s poverty following welfare reform in the United States, using up-to-date research that’s both qualitative and quantitative. Taking racial and ethnic diversity into account, the book’s contributors examine new findings on the feminization of poverty, the role of children and the lack of child care as an obstacle to employment, labor market policies that can reduce poverty and improve gender wage equality, sex and race segregation in the labor market, and the low quality of jobs available to low income women. Women, Work, and Poverty examines: marriage, motherhood, and work pay equity and living wage reforms community resources welfare status and child care acquiring higher education advancing women of color income security repaying debt after divorce gender differences in spendable income women’s job loss Women, Work, and Poverty is an invaluable aid for academics working in social work, social policy, women’s studies, economics, sociology, and political science, and for policy researchers, anti-poverty activists, and women’s leaders.

Maid
Maid

Author: Stephanie Land

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2019-01-22

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 0316505102

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"A single mother's personal, unflinching look at America's class divide (Barack Obama)," this New York Times bestselling memoir is the inspiration for the Netflix limited series, hailed by Rolling Stone as "a great one." At 28, Stephanie Land's dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer quickly dissolved when a summer fling turned into an unplanned pregnancy. Before long, she found herself a single mother, scraping by as a housekeeper to make ends meet. Maid is an emotionally raw, masterful account of Stephanie's years spent in service to upper middle class America as a "nameless ghost" who quietly shared in her clients' triumphs, tragedies, and deepest secrets. Driven to carve out a better life for her family, she cleaned by day and took online classes by night, writing relentlessly as she worked toward earning a college degree. She wrote of the true stories that weren't being told: of living on food stamps and WIC coupons, of government programs that barely provided housing, of aloof government employees who shamed her for receiving what little assistance she did. Above all else, she wrote about pursuing the myth of the American Dream from the poverty line, all the while slashing through deep-rooted stigmas of the working poor. Maid is Stephanie's story, but it's not hers alone. It is an inspiring testament to the courage, determination, and ultimate strength of the human spirit. "A single mother's personal, unflinching look at America's class divide, a description of the tightrope many families walk just to get by, and a reminder of the dignity of all work." -PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, Obama's Summer Reading List

Work and Family Commitments of Low-Income and Impoverished Women
Work and Family Commitments of Low-Income and Impoverished Women

Author: Judith Hennessy

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2015-03-18

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 0739186809

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Conflict between work and family life is an all too familiar experience for many Americans. The difficult choices facing women who combine paid work with childcare are the subject of a deluge of books and articles in addition to an ongoing public debate about how women and men should balance their work and family commitments. Although we know a great deal about the social and cultural environment fueling these contradictions among middle-class and upper middle class women, we know little about the forces that influence poor and low-income women. Work and Family Commitments of Low-Income and Impoverished Women addresses this omission and gives voice to women in poverty as it traces the moral and cultural structures that help shape the meaning and value of paid work and motherhood among a group of mothers who rely on welfare or a combination of low-wage work and welfare to provide and care for their families. This portrayal of poor women’s lives rarely enters the work-life debate over women’s choices, generally characterized as between mothers who have to work versus those who choose to. Judith Hennessy puts low-income women front and center to shed light on less explored aspects of the moral and cultural foundations of contemporary work and family conflict from interviews and survey data of a group of low-income and poor mothers on and off welfare. Hennessey explores the paradox in American society where combining paid work with caring for children continues to generate considerable ambivalence (and often guilt) on the part of married middle-class mothers for devoting too much time to paid work and supposedly neglecting their children. While poor and working class mothers who might otherwise rely on welfare are relegated to working at low-wage jobs outside the home in fulfillment of their family responsibilities.

Working from the Margins
Working from the Margins

Author: Virginia Schein

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-08-06

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 1501729853

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Virginia E. Schein shatters the stereotype of mothers on welfare. The women she interviewed in cities, towns, and rural areas talked to her about their deep committment to the children they are raising in poverty, about the abuse they have endured, about their eagerness for meaningful work, and about their inventiveness in stretching scarce dollars. In a policy debate increasingly dominated by shrill, punitive voices, Schein argues that the experiences and collective wisdom of these women cannot be ignored.

Ain't No Trust
Ain't No Trust

Author: Judith Levine

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2013-05-25

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0520274717

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AinÕt No Trust explores issues of trust and distrust among low-income women in the U.S.Ñat work, around childcare, in their relationships, and with caseworkersÑand presents richly detailed evidence from in-depth interviews about our welfare system and why itÕs failing the very people it is designed to help. By comparing low-income mothersÕ experiences before and after welfare reform, Judith A. Levine probes womenÕs struggles to gain or keep jobs while they simultaneously care for their children, often as single mothers. By offering a new way to understand how structural factors impact the daily experiences of poor women, AinÕt No Trust highlights the pervasiveness of distrust in their lives, uncovering its hidden sources and documenting its most corrosive and paralyzing effects. LevineÕs critique and conclusions hold powerful implications for scholars and policymakers alike. Ê

Poor Women in Rich Countries
Poor Women in Rich Countries

Author: Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-04-10

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0199718202

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The first book to study women's poverty over the life course, this wide-ranging collection focuses on the economic condition of single mothers and single elderly women--while also considering partnered women and immigrants--in eight wealthy but diverse countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In a rich analysis of labor market and social welfare sectors, Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg and a team of outstanding international contributors conclude that both living-wage employment and government provision of adequate benefits and services are necessary if lone women are to achieve a socially acceptable living standard. Taken together, the chapters extend a feminist critique of welfare state theories and chart nations' disparate progress against poverty -- probing, for instance, how Sweden emerged a leader in the prevention of women's poverty while the United States continues to lag. By identifying the social and economic policies that enable women to live independently, Poor Women in Rich Countries provides nothing less than a blueprint for abolishing women's poverty.

Women, Work, and Poverty
Women, Work, and Poverty

Author: Heidi I. Hartmann

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 0789032457

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Women, Work, and Poverty presents the latest information on women living at or below the poverty level and the changes that need to be made in public policy to allow them to rise above their economic hardships. Using a wide range of research methods, including in-depth interviews, focus groups, small-scale surveys, and analysis of personnel records, the book explores different aspects of women's poverty since the passage of the 1986 welfare reform bill. Anthropologists, economists, political scientists, sociologists, and social workers examine marriage, divorce, children and child care, employment and work schedules, disabilities, mental health, and education, and look at income support programs, such as welfare and unemployment insurance.

Mothers' Work and Children's Lives
Mothers' Work and Children's Lives

Author: Rucker C. Johnson

Publisher: W. E. Upjohn Institute

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13:

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"Basing their findings on the Women's Employment Study (WES), the authors provide evidence of the links between maternal work experiences and longer-run trajectories of child well-being. When a working mother is not on a regular work schedule, has hours that fluctuate from week to week, or works at a full-time job that presents limited wage growth and menial tasks, her children's behavior is more likely to deteriorate. Similar results are seen for those who bounce from job to job or are laid off or fired, since this churning often leads to frequent residential moves. The aspects of child well-being that the unique data from the WES allow the authors to examine include externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems, disruptive behavior at school, school absenteeism, grade repetition, and placement in special education. Johnson, Kalil, and Dunifon conclude that more employment opportunities offering the flexibility required by working parents to balance their work and family lives, along with affordable and safe housing, health insurance, and reliable child care, are needed to bolster the economic security and child well-being of low-income working families. Overall, this book sheds light on whether one of TANF's original goals--putting low-income mothers on a path to economic growth--is being met."--From publisher description.