Texas Women in Poverty: Part II

“The cure for poverty has a name. It is called the empowerment of women.” –Christopher Hitchens This second and final posting on female poverty in Texas examines how female poverty affects children. Best practices for addressing structural gender inequities that create and sustain poverty among women and children will also be discussed, as will benefits of such policies to the Texas economy, including implications for public spending. The first posting in this series elucidated the specific demographics and other social characteristics of female poverty in the state. Another critical piece of the analysis of female poverty in Texas is the impact to children. In the US, women and children comprise seventy percent of those in poverty. Due to historical barriers and continuing cultural norms that are destructive to women and girls’ advancement economically and socially, women perform the lion’s share of dependent care and therefore, earn less. Mothers often do not receive