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The Single Parent and Poverty

If current trends continue, especially in metropolitan areas like New York, Aless than half of all children born today will live continuously with their father and mother throughout childhood@ (Whitehead 11). Statistics now reveal that there are more than 11.5 million single-parent families in the U.S. According to the U.S., census bureau, about one-third of these families are poor. Poverty does not come merely from a single parent heading a family, but that the majority of these families are headed by women, who have few job skills, and little time to even work, in order to care for their children. Child support received nationwide in recent years totaled more than $28 billion. And there are few signs of this sort of economic cost of single-parent families, the majority black, of being reduced. Why is family structure a major cause of poverty? One answer is the failing family structure of the urban ghettos: AChanges in the family structure resulting in a decline of husband-wife families@ (Wilson 87).

The problems are more than psychological, in determining the social structure of children and their single-parent homes. The problems are economic. It means tax payer support to maintain a reasonable life-style, even if it is below or near the poverty line. The economic problems are becoming so severe, that they far outweigh the consequences of growing up alone in a family with a single parent and, (hopefully) a single wage-earner. It is not merely support for food, clothing, and housing. A@Children in single-parent families are six times as likely to be poorYchildren in one-parent families are two or three times as likelyY.to have behavioral or emotional problemsY.They are also more likely to drop out of high school, to get pregnant as teen-agers, to abuse drugs, and to get in trouble with the law (Whitehead 10-11).

Whether divorce, separation, or out-of-wedlock offspring, the Acurse@ of poverty and dislocation hi...

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The Single Parent and Poverty. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 09:41, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1693592.html