Recent Trends On The Inheritance Of Poverty And Family...

Nicolette Sperczak Poverty and Family Status In the article, Recent trends in the inheritance of poverty and family structure by Kelly Musick and Robert D. Mare in 2006, the interdependence of poverty and family structure is discussed. It is obvious that each factor relies on the other. Poverty affects family structure because money is a major stress factor within marriages. Many couple’s divorce issues are traced back to arguments over financial issues. The dynamics of poverty and family are intimately interwoven: poor economic prospects reduce the chances of marriage and increase those of divorce. Vice versa, family structure also affects economic status. Children who are born into non marital relationships and divorce are more likely to experience poverty within the home. Single-parent families have higher poverty rates than two-parent families and are more than twice as likely to experience long spells of poverty (Musick Mare, 2006). The article, Family Status and Poverty Among Older Women : The Gendered Distribution of Retirement Income in the United States by Madonna Harrington Meyer in 2006, takes a deeper look on specifically women in the family structure. It dissects how a married family’s benefits from spousal programs like Social Security. Most people are only in nuclear families, a couple and their dependent children, for brief portions of their lives. Regardless of that, men are mostly the money earners, for many reasons including bigger job