Feminization of Poverty, Essay Example

Within the academic literature, the notion of the “feminization of poverty” marks the theoretical identification of a certain intersection between economics and gender that plays a fundamental role within contemporary social life. As Kirst-Ashman and Hull (2005) summarize the concept, “the term feminization of poverty has been coined to reflect the fact that women as a group are more likely to be poor than men.” (p. 451) This reasonably clear idea of the basic inequality between men and women on the economic level nevertheless remains complicated by the disparate number of causes attributed as responsible for this social fact. Lind and Brzuzy (2008) note that, “the feminization of poverty is explained by political and cultural factors, which makes it a controversial topic” (p. 188) In other words, the controversy regarding the feminization of poverty is a product of the complicated relations between politics and culture that engender the phenomenon itself; moreover, insofar as the feminization of poverty is construed as the result of politics and culture, this suggests that the phenomenon can be described as both socially systematic and endemic, since it is not merely traceable to a singular etiology of cause and effect. For example, is the feminization of poverty merely the corollary of gender relations and the persistent ascription of gender roles; or is it the corollary of the entirety of the social and economic structure? Certainly, the “controversial” aspect of the concept suggests that there is a complicity of elements that allow for it to be: in other words, it is engendered by various diverse factors across a given social formation. One of the key elements in the feminization of poverty is its relation to education. This can be understood according to two inter-related tiers. Firstly, conditions of poverty may prevent an individual from pursuing an education; that is, poverty functions as an impasse to success in education. Secondly, education itself may be understood as a “way-out” of poverty; nevertheless, to the extent that poverty restricts success within education, poverty effectively serves as an impasse to its own negation through education. This suggests a certain circular aspect to the problem of thinking poverty and education, as poverty itself does not allow for the successful pursuit of education. The concept of the feminization of poverty holds to this theme. Since women are statistically less educated than men, it is more difficult for them to escape from poverty. Moreover, with the close connection between a lack of education and poverty, this would indicate that women, as less educated, are more susceptible to poverty. However, the impasses to women pursuing education are diverse, as cited above. Accordingly, the difficulty in theorizing a way out of the feminization of poverty is complicated by the aforementioned complex social aspects that constitute the phenomenon, alongside the apparent circularity of the relation between poverty and education.

In the following essay, we shall provide an account of the feminization of poverty, trying to index the complicated reasons for its development. Furthermore, we shall supplement this account by identifying the relationship between feminization of poverty and education. We are to suggest that this relationship takes the aforementioned form of a circle, which means that the feminization of poverty bears a vicious circularity. Thirdly, we shall consider some of the possible ways out of this circle, through a critical consideration of the complicated social structure that supports the feminization of poverty.

The very terminology of the “feminization of poverty” implies that there has not always been an essential correlation between women and economic poverty. Rather, the term “feminization” intimates that this is a continued, on-going process, one that has a distinct historical beginning. This is not to suggest that women in the past have been less poor, but rather that economic differences continue to be delineated and aggravated along the lines of gender. The feminization of poverty conceives of a break with how poverty is traditionally construed from a theoretical perspective, for example, from within the classical Marxist remit, in which poverty is primarily related to the notion of a division between the classes. Notions such as the feminization of poverty, in this regard, can be viewed as radicalizations or more thorough postulations of the reasons behind poverty. The reasons for class difference become more heterogeneous, as poverty is not merely reducible to, for example, from the Marxist example, a fundamental schism related to the control of the means of production. Furthermore, it is precisely this feminization of poverty that suggests that capitalist contemporary society has led to a division of labor that also reveals itself along gender lines, in the form of a certain deepening of this division within society.

The seminal text in which the notion of feminization of poverty is introduced is Diane Pearce’s 1978 article of the same name, wherein the author examines the logic behind the fact that, in the words of Kendall (2006), “women are disproportionately represented among individuals living in poverty.” (p. 271) According to Kendall, Pearce theorizes that, “women have a higher risk of being poor because they bear the major economic and emotional burdens of raising children.” (2006, p. 271) The societal structure, therefore, which assigns to women the role of the primary caregiver within a family complicates the responsibilities for women: they must simultaneously support children on both financial and emotional levels. This dual responsibility is further aggravated by the marginalized role women possess in the workplace, as “more women than men are unable to obtain regular, full-time, year-round employment” (Kendall, 2006, p. 271), while the “lack of adequate, affordable day care exacerbates this problem.” (Kendall, 2006, p. 271) These remarks suggest that even if women secure full employment, the problem of care giving remains extant. Care giving must be “outsourced” to day care services, which may be beyond the economic budget or simply unavailable. At the same time, Kendall (2006) notes, following Pearce’s data, that women who “are single heads of households earn between 70 and 80 cents for every dollar a male worker earns.” (p. 271) The economic impasse to women is thus further complicated by a purely economic wage gap based on gender roles between men and women, which suggest that women’s labor is less valued by society. The notion of women’s labor as less valued is also reflected in the types of jobs women hold as opposed to men. Kirst-Ashman and Hull (2005) write that, “women are clustered in low-paying supportive occupations”, while “many of the rest are employed in…occupations made up mostly of women including nurses, health technicians, elementary and secondary school teachers, and apparel and textile workers.” (p. 451) The occupations held by women are in clear opposition to those held by men, as the latter “tend to work in better-paying occupations as engineers, lawyers, dentists, and construction workers.” (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2005, p. 451) This empirical evidence suggests a certain division of labor within society that – unlike the Marxist variant of labor consecrated along class lines – is a division of labor consecrated along gender lines. This essentially segregating delineation of contemporary work prevents the possibility of crossing over into male sectors of labor, sectors that, as noted above, are inevitably synonymous with higher wages. Such a division infers that there is a socially constructed impasse that yields the gender divisions operative in labor and society; Pearce’s entire point with the notion of the “feminization of poverty” is that such poverty is established by society, and moreover, that such divisions are being perpetuated by this same society.

Concomitantly, when considering the gender logic behind this division, insofar as men remain dominant within high-wage job fields such as doctors and lawyers, occupations that require a higher level of education, this problem can not only be merely restricted to a gender analysis related to labor: what is required is a simultaneous gender analysis of education. Pearce’s concept infers a gender division operative within education, which prevents women from pursuing their studies and thereinafter breaking the gender assigned divisions within labor. That is to say, to the extent that women would be able to more actively pursue education, this would in turn lead them away from being forced to find work in “supportive occupations.”

All the above points suggest that there is something to the present societal formation itself that makes it conducive to the feminization of poverty. Considering the wide-variety of factors that engender the latter, it is therefore the complicated interrelation of these social facts that engender not only a concrete phenomenon such as the feminization of poverty, but also an underlying ideology that perpetuates this phenomenon. The barriers to possibly alleviating the feminization of poverty appear endemic and systematic, to the extent that this feminization reflects social, gender, education and economic discrepancies that are extant within society: There is a support of these economic and gender relations that function as a grounding ideology. At the same time, to move away from this situation it seems that what is required is a radical break from the present-day society in toto, recalling an utterly utopian project according to the extensiveness of this problematic.

Nevertheless, the possibilities to alleviate these discrepancies, despite their endemic, systematic character, are arguably present within the very social formation that creates these discrepancies. One of the crucial front lines in any potential resistance to the apparent pervasiveness of the feminization of poverty is the aforementioned notion of education, insofar as many of the higher paying jobs that would ipso facto lead away from lower economic statuses are accessible through the pursuit of education. In essence, there is a fundamental correlation between education and poverty – although education is not the only reason for poverty, as noted above, limits in education can be viewed as a significant means by which this the gender division of labor is maintained in American society. Furthermore, the need for re-thinking education in regards to the feminization of poverty is all the more pertinent to the extent that the phenomenon contributes to an overall economic decline within society itself. This greater decline is precisely because of the central role women play as primary caregiver: the feminization of poverty affects entire families, ultimately impacting society beyond gender divisions.

Certainly, the correlation between education and poverty has been discussed in the academic literature. This correlation takes a certain negative, circular, perpetuating form. For example, a female head of household living in poverty will not have time to pursue further education to improve her economic possibilities; moreover, this poverty will also affect the performance of her children in the education system. As Bruce Biddle (2001) observes, “Logic suggests that children who are impoverished will not do well in education, and aggregative American statistics indicate that they are more likely to fall behind their classmates in school, to be assigned to lower ‘tracks’ in education, to be retained in grade, to be labeled as ‘problem’ students, to be absent, truant, and to drop out of school altogether.” (p. 6) This data supports the notion of the cyclical nature of poverty, its societal repetition; moreover, it indicates the clear link between poverty and lack of education. Insofar as poverty engenders poor performance in education, the latter subsequently once again manifests itself through poverty, condemning “failed students” to lower-paying jobs within the economy and less stability in their employment. The concept of the feminization of poverty essentially identifies this same cyclical structure of poverty and education: to the extent that women are the primary poor within society, their “failures” in education will be greater, thus perpetuating their status as poor. Moreover, this circular structure has more widespread effects in the case of the feminization of poverty as “women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to have lower levels of education, and reciprocally those with lower levels of education have early births and higher fertility.” (Klein, 2007, p. 51) Thus, when women have lower levels of education, society as a whole is affected: for example, as fertility rates among the poor remain higher, this suggests the continual growth of a substantial underclass. In this regard, the problematic of the feminization of poverty is not only a problematic related to women, to children, but moreover speaks to the general health and economic successes of the entire society, according to the crucial role women play in society. As Klein notes, “the costs of not reaching out to provide educational intervention for these mothers both before and after a pregnancy is to condemn another generation to a loss of economic potential…Poor children are more likely to have poor educational outcomes and to reproduce poverty among their own children. (Klein, 2007, p. 51-52) Accordingly, the problematic of the cyclical relation between education and poverty becomes even more pertinent when considering this relation from the standpoint of the feminization of poverty, as poverty becomes more pervasive because of this initial gender division.

Nevertheless, it is this very cyclical relationship between poverty and education that simultaneously presents the possibility for a break with the impasse of the feminization of poverty. That is to say, it is precisely by emphasizing women’s education that the cycle of poverty and education can in fact be broken: the positive effects of women being encouraged to pursue education would not only alleviate gender difference, but contribute to the amelioration of society in its entirety. What makes this approach so compelling is that it identifies a weak link in the greater societal and gender and ideological constructions that lead to the feminization of poverty. Thus, theoretical approaches such as the aforementioned Susan S. Klein’s Handbook for Achieving Gender Equity Through Education emphasize the crucial link between poverty and education, seeking to overturn gender divisions that may be conditioned by a vast number of social, political and cultural factors, positing education as a certain weak point in this complex social construction. As Klein (2007) notes, “education provides both men and women tremendous resources for shifting gears and developing new skills. (p. 51) It is hence by emphasizing education as a particular solution to poverty that particular phenomena such as the feminization of poverty may be ideally halted, with the corollary of generally increasing economic success within society. Klein (2007) is clear in noting that, “there is little doubt that educational attainment improves one’s earnings.” (p. 50) The direct correlation between education and poverty suggests that to halt the feminization of poverty what is required is a subsequent (what may be termed) “feminization of education”, in which women are increasingly encouraged to pursue education, in order to reverse the trend of poverty. This “feminization of education”, as Klein notes (2007), is already perceptible: “educated women’s gap with men has gradually been narrowing.” (p. 51) Moreover, this narrowing of the gap has resulted in the achievement of a certain security in situations of economic hardship: “Contemporary women’s increased education certainly acts as a buffer against unemployment.” (Klein, 2007, p. 51) In this regard, education is not only an affirmative gesture with the intent of participating in the economic and social spheres, but also acts as a preventative measure in times of economic crisis.

What we have termed the need for the “feminization of education”, however, remains hindered by various social mores and a general ideology that are operative in the very same American society that Pearce has identified as engendering a feminization of poverty. When considering the inherent dynamism and inequality of the capitalist economic system, education becomes crucial to surviving the very vicissitudes of the free market. Nevertheless, the ideology that is complicit with this system, as described by Arrighi and Maume (2007), continually stresses that “anyone who is willing to work hard can get ahead and is rewarded commensurate with effort”, a notion that is “a widely shared, powerful moral imperative.” (p. 134) Such an ideology obviously disregards the cyclical and repercussive elements of the feminization of poverty that we have noted. Moreover, even in cases when women pursue education and higher-paying jobs, ideology again reveals itself, as “for women with children, excessive devotion to a career is a sign of self-centeredness and failure to be a good mother.” (Arrighi and Maume, 2007, p. 134) These social mores and ideological perspectives evince the further underlying social obstacles that prevent any realization of a prospective feminization of education.

This emphasis on strengthening women’s education to halt the feminization of poverty is not to suggest that merely the improvement of education possibilities will serve as a radical “cure-all” for economic disparity and social stratification. This is clear in the aforementioned social mores that diminish a woman who appears to be “devoted to her career”; moreover, Klein (2007) is lucid in pointing out that in difficult economic times, a highly educated work-force can be considered to be a negative: “the more senior the person, the greater the credentials, the higher the salary they are accustomed to commanding, the lower their desirability as an employee in a tight economy.” (p. 51) Klein (2007) also notes that “today’s market is increasingly looking for eager, less experienced, less well plaid employees” (p. 51) in order to satisfy the particular demands of the economic system of capital. Furthermore, “while education is a hedge against poverty, it cannot alone protect an individual from the economic ravages of joblessness, serious illnesses of family members, or terrible natural disasters.” (Klein, 2007, p. 51) Klein’s overall point in the above comments are that poverty can be traced to a disparate number of economic, social and even non-social factors (such as natural disasters) factors, such that one must remain wary of proclaiming education as the remarkable solution to the feminization of poverty. Nevertheless, from another perspective, what such disparate factors simultaneously infer is the very instability of any societal formation, formations that are never fully obverse to the potential of poverty. The complicated etiology of the feminization of poverty and of poverty in general should not be considered as deterrents in the attempt to minimize poverty.

Accordingly, the phenomenon of the feminization of poverty suggests a number of interrelated factors contributing to its cause. Nevertheless, insofar as empirical and theoretical work has implied that there is an alarming symmetry between gender roles and an economic underclass, this does not mean that the feminization of poverty is ultimately anything other than a particular and local phenomenon. The subsequent theoretical step is to de-mystify this feminization of poverty, thus identifying the illusory absoluteness of the latter: alternative social arrangements are plausible. Particularly, because of the crucial circularity between poverty and education, initiatives to improve women’s access to education are crucial to breaking this very circularity. Education can be understood as a certain essential segment of the particular social construct that maintains the gender division of labor: it is by “reclaiming” this segment that the division itself may in turn become minimized.

Works Cited

Arrighi, Barbara A. and Maume, David J. (2007). Child Poverty in America Today: The Promise of Education. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Biddle, Bruce J. (2001). Social Class, Poverty and Education: Policy and Practice. London: Routledge.

Kendall, Diane Elizabeth. (2006). Sociology in Our Times. London, UK: Cengage Learning.

Kirst-Ashman, Karen and Hull, Grafton H. (2005). Understanding Generalist Practice. London, UK: Cengage Learning.

Klein, Susan S. (2007). Handbook for Achieving Gender Equity through Education. London: Routledge.

Lind, Amy and Stephanie Brzuzy. (2008). Battleground: Women, Gender and Sexuality. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.