A network of interlocking systems of racialized, classed, and gendered oppression contributes to the “feminization of homelessness.” Unequal and low pay, unpaid caregiving, lack of affordable housing, discrimination, a weak safety net, punitive welfare and public housing policies, and intimate partner violence (IPV) are among the many factors that contribute to women's homelessness. Despite their intersections, these factors are often considered in isolation. Arguing for movement away from single‐axis conceptualizations of women's homelessness, we offer an intersectional analysis of mothers’ pathways into homelessness that foregrounds structural inequalities, highlights relational power dynamics, and reveals multilevel intersections of identity and experience. Drawing on two complementary interview studies, we explore two interrelated pathways into homelessness: (1) IPV as a gendered, racialized, and classed experience that contributes to economic and housing precarity; and (2) intersections of weak and restrictive safety net programs with raced, classed, and gendered “discipline.” We trace how privilege and disadvantage cumulate across women's lives and how institutional and relational power intersect with common “shocks” (e.g., eviction, loss of employment). We attend closely to the racialized and gendered dynamics of economic abuse; how gender, race, class, and motherhood shape pathways into homelessness; and how these intersections inform institutional responses to economic and housing precarity.

This article highlights efforts by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) and its members to increase understanding of poverty and social class, and to propose policies to reduce economic inequities. Our review is based on writings about poverty and social class published in SPSSI journals and newsletters, and other activities from SPSSI's beginnings in 1936 to the present. Both strengths and shortcomings in SPSSI's economic justice record are noted. Special attention is given to the 1930s and the 1960s -1970s, periods in which poverty was a salient topic in the United States. SPSSI's role in advocating for institutional change within the American Psychological Association is also considered. We close with a "wish list" for SPSSI's next 75 years.From the Great Depression to the current post-"welfare reform" landscape, social scientists have studied economic inequality and sought to inform antipoverty policy. The focus of anti-poverty initiatives and their perceived success remain highly contested, reflecting deep-rooted differences in both the perceived causes of economic inequality and potential remedies.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract