In his 1965 report on the black family, Daniel Patrick Moynihan highlighted the rising fraction of black children growing up in households headed by unmarried mothers. He attributed the increase largely to the precarious economic position of black men, many of whom were no longer able to play their traditional role as their family's primary…

This article examines the role of the African American uncle as a vital yet overlooked form of social support and social capital in the lives of adolescent African American male sons living in single-female-headed households. Research rarely examines the affective roles and functions of men in Black families; moreover, poor urban Black male youth…

Women have higher rates of poverty than men in almost all societies. This paper compares the difference between male and female poverty in modern nations, using data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) to compare men's and women's poverty rates in eight Western industrialized countries in the 1990s. The LIS contains information on household…

The rural poverty rate rose 0.6 percent in 1990 to 16.3 percent, compared to 12.7 percent for urban areas. All nonmetro population groups had higher poverty rates than metro counterparts. About 43 percent of nonmetro families headed by women were poor. The Family Support Act may help such families. (SV)

Regression analysis of 40 years of data on median income, education, divorce rate, and female-headed households was conducted to determine their influence on crime rates, especially homicide. Educational attainment had a significant bearing on criminality. Single parenting was less significant than low income. (SK)

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) serves more than 29 million children each day, but there is little information on the characteristics of those children. This study reports new estimates of NSLP participant characteristics using two national surveys: the 2001 Panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and the 1999-2002…

In 2004, the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) served an average of 29 million lunches daily, at a Federal cost of $7.6 billion. Schools are reimbursed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) according to the number of each type of meal served. FNS administrative data do not include information on the…

Reviews current research on Black families headed by a single mother indicating that economic insecurity of Black males is an important causal factor in explaining both the numbers and the impoverishment of this family type. Contends social workers must advocate for policies to assist these groups economically. (Author/ABL)

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…

Most women who maintain families have a strong commitment to the labor force but have lower average educational attainment and earnings, bringing them closer to poverty with each additional child. (JOW)

Sociologists have linked black family structure to persisting disadvantage. This study employs data from the 1990 Public Use Microdata Samples to compare the rural African American family to its urban counterpart. Results from the logistic regression analysis reveal that for rural blacks, family structure is less important than community type and…

Summarizes data from 1990 Current Population Survey supporting three general conclusions: (1) parental employment and children's poverty are linked in married-couple and female-headed families; (2) child poverty rates are insensitive to parental employment; (3) black-white differences in child poverty are not result of racial differences in…

Analyzes burglary rates for 141 cities for which data on burglary, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), cost of living, unemployment, household status, and other social and economic variables were available. Cost-of-living AFDC payment per recipient was found to have a direct negative impact on burglary and a separate indirect negative…

This ethnographic study focuses on two homeless mothers and their efforts to support their families. The study reveals how the mothers came to be homeless and how this experience has affected them. The work examines the experiences of the mothers with and perceptions of their children's education as well as the roles the mothers play in the…

This study examines whether children born outside of marriage and currently living in single-mother families are more likely to be poor than children in single-mother families who were born to married parents. Using the 1997 National Survey of America's Families, the study finds that among children living with single mothers, those born outside of…