The Feminization of Poverty
The feminization of poverty is the reality in which an expanding extent of those living at or underneath the destitution line are females. It is a critical issue that influences females. Furthermore, women indigence in most cases characterizes the destitution of their children. The major purpose of the paper is to identify the meaning of the “feminization poverty” term, to explain why this phenomenon continues to increase and to determine what potential remedies or social policies could assist in this essential problem.
In 1976, the former Director of the Women and Poverty Project of Wider Opportunities for Women, Diana Pearce for the first time introduced the expression "feminization of poverty". She discovered that two thirds of the poor in the United States were women beyond 16 years old and that women’s financial status had declined from 1950 to the mid-1970s.
Various reasons have been observed to be connected with the phenomenon of women poverty. In order to understand better the feminization of poverty, it is significant to conclude what aspects put women at higher risk for destitution and what elements can decrease this contingency.
The gender inequality is likewise an essential contributing element to the destitution of women. Gender disparity imbalances inside family settings, decline women scarcity, especially in impecunious families. The division of work by sex charges women to household work and constrains their access to material and social assets and support in political, economic and social decision-making. Women have comparatively narrow material resources and even more confined social resources (access to goods, services and income through social associations) and cultural resources (formal education and cultural knowledge).
Moreover, the feminization of poverty influences not just women, but their children as well. In 2013 more than 30 percent of females in families with single parents were living in indigence. In 2011 more than one in five kids lived in indigence and almost 47 percent of kids with a single mother lived in destitution. Besides, mothers frequently obtain little child support from their previous partners or the fathers of their youngsters. These factors also increase the probability of women necessity to bolster a family with deficient income.
Also, women have a tendency to live longer than men, making older women more at risk for destitution as their sources of revenue (generally lower as a result of gender stratification) run out. Sexual harassment and discrimination in the job market, difficulty in finding low-cost child care are also considered to be risk factors for women poverty.
Here are some potential remedies that can help to reduce or, even, to extirpate the “feminization of poverty” phenomenon:
to change employment environment that is hostile to women.
to develop the understanding about self-sufficiency among women.
to offer services that can support daily life for parents and their children
to develop and realize particular financial, social and related approaches in support of female-headed family units.
to establish and carry out anti-poverty programs, that enhance access to foodstuff for women living in …
