The Feminization of Poverty Only in America?

Subjects:

• Sociology » Class Structure
• Women's Studies » Women's Studies (General)
• Women's Studies » Women in Business & Labor

Reviews:

• This comprehensive and carefully organized collection provides an overview of the relationship between gender and economic stratification in 7 industrialized countries. Everywhere, as a Polish commentator notes, "men have too much power, and women too much work." Nevertheless, these studies reveal large differences in the circumstances of women in different countries, and help to illuminate the several developments in the labor market, the family and public policy which explain the extreme "feminization of poverty" in the United States.
  —
  Frances Fox Piven
  
  
  Graduate School
  
  
  The City University of New York
  

• Endorsement From
  Frances Fox Piven
  
  
  Graduate School
  
  
  City University of New York
  
  : This comprehensive and carefully organized collection provides an overview of the relationship between gender and economic stratification in seven industrialized countries. Everywhere, as a Polish commentator notes, 'men have too much power, and women too much work.' Nevertheless, these studies reveal large differences in the circumstances of women in different countries and help to illuminate the several developments in the labor market, the family and public policy which explain the extreme feminization of poverty in the United States.
• Endorsement From
  Frank Riessman
  
  
  Co-director, National Self-Help Clearinghouse
  
  
  Co-editor, Social Policy Magazine
  : A most fascinating, timely, and innovative study, this is the first work to examine the feminization of poverty in an international perspective. I am impressed with the wide range of countries included--not only Western European and North American nations, but Poland, the Soviet Union, and Japan. The scholar as well as the student will learn a great deal about the condition of women in each of these industrial nations and will gain comparative insight as well. One of the strengths of this book is that its authors are equally concerned with employment and with social welfare policies--a balanced approach that is all too frequently missing from social policy analyses. Their formulations of both problems and resolutions are both stimulating and sensible.
• Endorsement From Michael B. Katz
  
  
  Stanley I. Sheerr Professor of History
  
  
  Director, Urban Studies Program
  
  
  University of Pennsylvania
  : The authors show convincingly that the feminization of poverty, although most advanced in America, is an international trend. By examining the same set of factors in seven countries, they unravel the reasons why. Their special contribution is the integration of developments in each country's labor market with gender, social policy, and inequality. Lucid, careful, and systematic, the book builds a compelling explanation for the needless impoverishment experienced by millions of American women and offers a sensible, realistic agenda for its reduction.

Table of Contents:

• The Feminization of Poverty: Discovered in America by Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg and Eleanor Kremen
• The United States: Feminization of Poverty Amidst Plenty by Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg
• Canada: Bordering on the Feminization of Poverty by Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg
• Japan: A Special Case by June Axinn
• Labor Market and Family Policy in France: An Intersecting Complex for Dealing with Poverty by Jane Jenson and Ruth Kantrow
• Sweden: Promise and Paradox by Marguerite G. Rosenthal
• Socialism: An Escape from Poverty? Women in European Russia by Eleanor Kremen
• Poland: A Country of Conflicts by Sophie Wojciechowski
• The Feminization of Poverty: Not Only in America by Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg and Eleanor Kremen
• Index