Analysis of Current Population Survey data indicates that each successive cohort of white family heads born since 1944-48 faced an increasingly greater chance of being poor, even with the increase in female-headed families controlled. The black cohort effect is not significant, but period effects suggest that blacks' economic gains of the 1970s…

Comparison of household structures and living arrangements among Black, Hispanic, and White families indicated that both economic factors and cultural variables influenced the formation of extended households. Families with single female heads, which were hypothesized to be most closely associated with economic disadvantage, were most likely to be…

Surveys American mothers, both Black and White, on issues of kin networks, childcare, and financial support. Confirms Black mothers have better access to relatives for financial support and childcare, though almost one-third of Blacks had no kin network. Network support insufficiently met childcare needs of many mothers. (Author/TES)

Uses time-series analyses to examine "culture-of-poverty" argument behind rising poverty levels. Discusses alternative views. Finds welfare benefits reduce poverty, modestly relate to increasing female headship, and strongly relate to rising unemployment among young minority males. Calls for more comprehensive model to explain poverty.…

In analyses controlling for socioeconomic status (SES), parental divorce during adolescence produced few negative effects on adult adjustment, and father's death during adolescence produced none. However, SES during adolescence and current SES affected nearly all aspects of adult adjustment, as did mother's and own educational attainment. Contains…

Analysis of census data indicates that the proportions of children in both the wealthiest and poorest families increased during the 1980s, associated with increasing female-headed families and changing patterns of maternal employment. Moreover, increasing racial differences in family structure exacerbated income inequality between African-American…

Data on black children and white children over age six and their mothers (from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth) indicate no racial differences in total effects of poverty and single parenthood on parenting practices (affection and spanking). Parenting practices were reciprocally related to child's antisocial behavior for whites, but did not…

Analysis of 1990 data on 151 U.S. cities indicates that the spatial isolation of blacks from whites strongly predicts rates of urban black violence (homicide and robbery). Suggests that underlying the relationship between segregation and crime is the geographic concentration of poverty, joblessness, low job skills, low education, welfare, teen…

In an urban Brazilian shantytown, poor mothers took the risk of becoming squatters on public land (despite repressive actions by a military dictatorship) because activism was their only avenue to access the resources (housing) needed for motherhood--their only available valued identity. Poor fathers, having other possible identities, tended to…