Women & Welfare

Women and Welfare

Women are beginning to face several problems in today's time. Ranging from being treated as only sex symbols to having to live the stereotype of "you have to be skinny to be beautiful", the last thing women need is another rising problem. Unfortunately for women and even society though, one exists. Several factors in the American society are to blame for the positive correlation between women and welfare, and if nothing is done about it, it will soon become a problem that needs severe resolving efforts.

According to Mr. Leahy's excerpt , author of the article entitled Time on welfare: why do people enter and leave the system?, there are at least 2 factors we can blame on why a lot women are being forced to rely on welfare:

"Race and education appear to be separately, and addictively, related to welfare duration. Blacks remain on welfare somewhat longer than whites at every educational level except for less-educated married couples. Education appears to have a stronger effect than race: less education increases welfare duration for both racial categories. For all family categories, less educated black women who enter welfare before the age of 25 spend more time on welfare. Black women who are widowed, divorced or separated and who have children experience the longest spells. Surprisingly, less educated unwed black women spend as much total time on welfare as married couples with children. Very likely this results because the former group is younger than the married sample. The fact that the married sample is older may also explain why there is no clear relationship between family status and time on welfare."

As you may see, it is thought that race and especially the lack of education contribute to the likeliness of welfare usage. In today's society, education is one of the most important things a person can attain, no matter the area the person lives in. An education empowers an individual to have the know how of getting out of a bad living environment, and maybe enough knowledge to prevent yourself from even getting into a situation like that in the first place. It is obvious education is important since it is enforced by the United States government that children have to begin attending school by a certain age number. Without at least a high school diploma, since American citizens are subconsciously stratified into an upper, middle, and lower class, an individual will automatically be placed in a disadvantageous situation causing them to have less of a chance of receiving a job paying more than minimum wage.

Something that is hard to believe is that excluding education and racism, divorce is next in line for the causal of women getting on welfare. Divorce is a tragic life-turning event for both the mother, and especially if there is a child involved in the matter. According to Leah Latimer, author of the article called Why Many Poor Women are Mothers, and Far Fewer are Wives , "Many young mothers even reject the marriage proposal of a stable partner until they have done the following to guarantee a happy home life - spent at least four to six years together as a couple and saved up money for a single-family home and a nice wedding." This new trend is detrimental to women, especially single mothers, because it causes them to provide for themselves, and sometimes a child or children, on a one person monthly income.

An interesting statistic I found in the previously mentioned article Time on welfare: why do people enter and leave the system? (author is Peter Leahy) says this:

"A woman entering welfare before age 25 will spend, on average, an additional 70.6 months on welfare. Lacking any work history adds a further 21.4 months, each child an additional 4.1 months, and not achieving a high school degree adds nearly 10 months."

I wanted to include this statistic because I thought it was extremely interesting. In case you haven't realized, a woman who decides to get on welfare because she is having a hard time in her life and just wants a little time to get herself together spends an average of 70.6 months on welfare. That is well over 5.5 years! And that isn't even including the additional months tacked onto the end from other "extra" problems.

Even though the factors that are causing the increase in women being on welfare are severe, I think there is an achievable resolution in the near future. Welfare will not be completely gotten rid of because of its helpful nature for the elderly and people in need, but I think the usage/need for it by women can be greatly reduced by several different ways. There are a few things that can be done to help resolve this problem. A small and cheap idea that would help out these poverty-stricken women is to provide free classes at convenient times. A good start would be to have classes that provided information how to do well with writing a great resume when applying for a job, classes on how to do well and impress people when going to interview, and even smaller things taught in a classroom such as workplace etiquette would be at least a start on improving life for these women. It's a widely known fact that if you have anything about you that makes you stand out in front of the others, and I mean anything, you will become noticed and have a better chance of getting whatever you are trying to get, whether it's a job or some kind of beauty pageant.

Another major problem that women face when trying to fend for themselves is the lack of money for transportation so they don't have a way back and forth to work. How can you expect someone to work or even improve their