Children of Incarcerated Parents

women entered the workforce, divorce rates increased rapidly, and birth rates
decreased. These shifts were both reactions to and reflections of massive shifts in the
American economic, social, and cultural landscapes.
Studies show that single-parent households are far more likely to subsist below the
poverty line. Some estimates say that children living in single parents homes are as
much as four times as likely to live in poverty. Single parents must often support
children on only one salary and must do so without the logistical and emotional support
of another adult. Even when absent parents (in most cases, fathers) do pay child
support, that income is less than what it would be if the parent was living with the family.
As cases of single parent families rise, without commensurate increases in social
welfare spending it is clearly predictable that more children will live in poverty.
Scholars of juvenile poverty are interested in not just the increase in single-mother
homes but the changing demographics of single mothers and the implications this has
for their children's welfare. In the decades between 1960 and the end of the 20th
century not only were more single women heading families but the population
demographics of those women was shifting rapidly. In the 1960–70s single mothers
were far likelier to be older, divorced or widowed, and at least high school graduate with
some work experience. As the century came to a close the age of single mothers was
trending downwards, as were their levels of education and work experience.
Single mothers were also increasingly more likely to be never-married. These statistics
are especially predictive of juvenile poverty because never-married mothers, as
compared to divorced or separated mothers, are frequently dependent on both family
and social welfare; live in higher poverty, more disadvantaged neighborhoods; and are
more likely to be unemployed or lacking in job skills. These trends indicate higher levels
of poverty for a growing number of single mothers and, by extension, their children.
The scholarly and media attention paid to single mothers, in particular, has several
implications. The first, and perhaps most politically charged, is the scrutiny placed on
single mothers and their perceived failings as parents. Single mothers have been
scrutinized both morally and economically, especially as the trends in "single" status
changed over time. At the middle of the 20th century, the majority of single mothers
were widowed while a small number were divorced or never-married. In the 1960s and
70s the number of divorced single parents rose exponentially.
And throughout the last decades of the 20th century the number of never married
mothers also continued to grow. Never-married single mothers, in particular, have been
pathologized and their high rates of poverty seen by conservative forces as a product of
their immorality and rejection of traditional family norms. This characterization is at the
heart of pejorative labels like "welfare queen" that dominated political discussions of
social spending and welfare programs for single mothers. Of very real concern,
however, is the high rate of poverty experienced by children of never-married mothers.
Bianchi writes that "two-thirds of children with a never-married mother live in poverty"
(p. 100).
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