Family Facts: Social Science Research on Family, Society & Religion

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This finding looks at the relationship between marital status and poverty among women.

Marital status is strongly and significantly correlated with the likelihood of being impoverished. Compared to never-married peers, women who had ever been married were substantially less likely to be poor—regardless of race, family background, non-marital births, or education. Ever-married women have a poverty rate that was roughly one-third lower than the poverty rate of never-married women. Currently married women had an even lower probability of living in poverty—about two-thirds lower than other women.

Sample or Data Description
Data come from the 1995 wave of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), which is a national probability sample of 10,847 women aged 15 to 44. The analytic sample consists of 7,665 women, aged 25 to 44 at interview, of whom 11.5 percent were living at or below poverty in 1995, 75 percent were white, 14 percent were black, and 10 percent were Hispanic.

Source
"Is Marriage a Panacea? Union Formation Among Economically Disadvantaged Unwed Mothers"
Lichter, Daniel T.
Roempke, Deborah, Brown, J. Brian
Social Problems Vol. 50, Number . , 2003. Page(s) 60-86.

FindingID: 5218