This paper documents increasing cohabitation in the United States, and the implications of this trend for the family lives of children. The stability of marriage-like relationships (including marriage and cohabitation) has decreased despite a constant divorce rate. Children increasingly live in cohabiting families either as a result of being born to cohabiting parents or of their mother s entry into a cohabiting union. The proportion of births to unmarried women born into cohabiting families increased from 29 to 39 per cent in the period 1980-84 to 1990-94, accounting for almost all of the increase in unmarried childbearing. As a consequence, about two-fifths of all children spend some time in a cohabiting family, and the greater instability of families begun by cohabitation means that children are also more likely to experience family disruption. Estimates from multi-state life tables indicate the extent to which the family lives of children are spent increasingly in cohabiting families and decreasingly in married families.

We use data from the Current Population Survey (CPS 1994(CPS −2001 to document the relationship between gender-specific demographic variations and the gender-poverty gap among eight racial/ethnic groups. We find that Black and Puerto Rican women experience a double disadvantage owing to being both women and members of a minority group. As compared with whites, however, gender inequality among other minority groups is relatively small. By utilizing a standardization technique, we are able to estimate the importance of gender-specific demographic and socioeconomic composition in shaping differences in men's and women's poverty rates both within and across racial/ethnic lines. The analysis reveals that sociodemographic characteristics have a distinct effect on the poverty rate of minority women, and that the form and the magnitude of the effect vary across racial/ethnic lines. By incorporating the newly available immigration information in the CPS data, we are also able to document the effect of immigration status on gender inequality. The social and economic implications of the findings for the study of gender inequality are discussed in the last section of the article.Key words: poverty; gender inequality; race and ethnicity; feminization of poverty. 1 Since the late 1970s, the "feminization of poverty" (Pearce 1978), a term referring to a process whereby the poverty population increasingly comprises women and their children, has been receiving growing attention among social scientists (Bianchi 1999). While there is virtual unanimity that American women are more likely than men to fall into poverty, aggregate figures pertaining to the gender gap in poverty mask critical racial and ethnic variations; this is true with respect not only to the magnitude of the gap but also the social and demographic determinants that shape it. Indeed, the "feminization of poverty" thesis was criticized for its failure to recognize that minority women are disproportionately represented among the poor. In the early 1980s, Palmer (1983: 4−5) introduced the phrase "racial feminization of poverty" to reflect the fact that minority women are at greater risk of falling into poverty than either minority men or white women. Recent data on poverty rates in the United States indicate that black, Native American, and Hispanic women are disproportionately represented among the poor, and several studies have pointed to a need to study the distinct patterns and origins of women's poverty across both racial and ethnic lines (Hardy and Hazelrigg 1995;Starrels, Bould, Nicholas 1994;Waters and Eschbach 1995).A second line of critique of the feminization of poverty thesis focuses on the measurement and interpretation of gender disparity in poverty. "From the beginning what the term 'feminization' meant and to whom it referred were not always clear [and] …statistics cited to support the feminization of poverty tended to blur these distinctions" (Bianchi 1999: 309). In the essay, "The Perils of Provocative Statistics," Scanlan (1991) drew on...

Since the implementation of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program in late-1996, welfare rolls have declined by more than half. This paper explores whether improvements in the economic well-being of children have accompanied this dramatic reduction in welfare participation. Further, we examine the degree to which the success or failure of welfare reform has been shared equally among families of varying educational background. We analyze data from the March Current Population Surveys (CPS) over the years 1988 through 2001. Specifically, we link data for families with children who are interviewed in adjacent years and determine whether their economic circumstances either improved or deteriorated. We use two alternative approaches to address this general issue: a variety of regression models and a differencein-differences methodology. These approaches provide consistent answers. In a bivariate framework TANF is associated with higher incomes; but this association becomes insignificant in the presence of business cycle controls. We also determine that children who were poor at an initial time period benefit differently, depending on their parents' educational attainment level. Poor children with parents who do not have a high school degree are significantly worse off in the TANF era, relative to the era prior to welfare reform, than are poor children of more educated parents.

Since the implementation of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program in late-1996, welfare rolls have declined by more than half. This paper explores whether improvements in the economic well-being of children have accompanied this dramatic reduction in welfare participation. Further, we examine the degree to which the success or failure of welfare reform has been shared equally among families of varying educational background. We analyze data from the March Current Population Surveys over the years 1988 through 2001. Specifically, we link data for families with children who are interviewed in adjacent years and determine whether their economic circumstances either improved or deteriorated. We use two alternative approaches to address this general issue: a variety of regression models and a differencein-differences methodology. These approaches provide consistent answers. In a bivariate framework TANF is associated with higher incomes; but this association becomes insignificant in the presence of business cycle controls. We also determine that children who were poor at an initial time period benefit differently, depending on their parents' educational attainment level. Poor children with parents who do not have a high school degree are significantly worse off in the TANF era, relative to the era prior to welfare reform, than are their more educated counterparts.