Children of Incarcerated Parents

statistically determine the impoverished population. This approach quantifies the
number of poor individuals and households but does not take into account how the
impoverished population lacks basic needs such as housing, food, health and
education. The second approach focuses on satisfying this lack of basic needs and
emphasizes the multidimensional nature of poverty.
Moroccan women represent the most economically insecure social group in the country.
One of six Moroccan households are lone-mother households, which represent the
most impoverished households in the country. Women are categorized to have the
highest levels of socio-economic and legal constraints, which exclude them from
obtaining their basic needs. Although recent surveys show that women actively help in
providing for their families economically, Moroccan legal texts discourage women's
participation in economic productivity.
Article 114 of the Moroccan Family Law states, "every human being is responsible for
providing for his needs by his own powers except the wife whose needs will be taken
care of by her husband." The patriarchal social structure of Morocco puts women as
being inferior to men in all aspects. Women are denied equal opportunities in education
and employment before the law, as well as access to resources. As a result, the female
population in Morocco suffers from deprivation of capabilities. Young girls are often
excluded from educational opportunities due to limited financial resources within the
household and the burden of household chores expected from them.
Over time, Moroccan women have gained more access to employment. However, this
quantitative increase in labor participation for women has not been accompanied by
higher qualitative standards of labor. The labor of rural women in Morocco remain
unacknowledged and unpaid. Women are put into a higher risk of poverty as their
domestic workload is added onto their unpaid labor. This balance of domestic labor and
work outside the home imposes a burden on rural women.
Since the socioeconomic exclusion of women deprive them of the capabilities to be
educated and trained for certain employment skills, their susceptibility to poverty is
heightened. Low educational skills of women directly relate to the limited employment
options they have in society. Although both men and women are affected by
unemployment, women are more likely to lose their jobs than men. Recent research in
Morocco shows that economic recessions in the country affect women the most.
United Kingdom
An investigation of females below the poverty line in the United Kingdom between 1959
and 1984 discovered a substantial increase in the percentage of females who are in
poverty in the 1960s. The percentage remained relatively constant in the 1970s, and
then decreased between 1979 and 1984. The increase of females below the poverty
line in the 1960s was determined to be from an increase of women in one-sex
households. This was more adverse for blacks than whites.
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