Appealing to both graduate and upper-level undergraduate course in psychology, sociology, social work, political science, and many interdisciplinary areas, Women and Poverty provides a social psychological analysis of social class and class-based inequity, specifically in terms of women's poverty.

About the Author ix

1 Women and Poverty: An Ongoing Crisis 1

2 Structural Sources of Women’s Poverty and Homelessness 16

3 Beliefs about Poverty, Wealth, and Social Class: Implications for Intergroup Relations and Social Policy 40

4 Welfare Reform at 15 and Beyond: How Are Low-Income Women and Families Faring? 70

5 Low-Income Women, Critical Resistance, and Welfare Rights Activism 104
Co-authored with Wendy M. Limbert and Roberta A. Downing

6 Women and Economic Justice: Pitfalls, Possibilities, and Promise 140

References 159

Index 192

Women and Poverty provides a social psychological analysis of social class and classism, particularly in relation to women's poverty. The book offers a critical analysis of the social and structural factors that contribute to poverty among women, class-based power relations, and the sociocultural beliefs that legitimize economic injustice. Core questions include: How do diverse socioeconomic groups perceive social class and prospects for upward mobility? How do low-income women view interclass relations, economic inequality, and the welfare system? How are poverty, and class privilege and disadvantage explained and understood? How do sexist, racist, and classist attitudes and beliefs contribute to the hardships low-income women confront? How are these beliefs related to current welfare and other social and economic policies? What structural, social, and cultural changes would reduce poverty?

To address these questions, Women and Poverty brings together research and theory from social psychology, policy studies, and critical and feminist scholarship. The synthesis and application of these perspectives to women’s poverty is one of the key features of this book, providing readers with a multifaceted appreciation of the underlying causes of poverty and the policies that promote economic justice. Positioning classism as a pervasive source of inequity, women’s experiences of poverty and class-based discrimination are examined at the individual, intergroup, and institutional levels.

Bullock shines the light of her clear and bold analyses on such issues as discrimination, unpaid labor for motherhood and caregiving, labor market wage disparities, unaffordable housing, and violence. She examines the relationship between negative attitudes and beliefs about poor women and demeaning social policies. A “must” for social and community psychologists, clinical and educational psychologists, and all other professionals and students who take seriously the mission of advancing human health and welfare.
—Dr Bernice Lott, Department of Psychology, The University of Rhode Island

With her book Women and Poverty, Heather Bullock continues her groundbreaking illumination of poverty and classism from a psychological perspective. Bringing her focus to the gendered construction of poverty, Bullock’s compelling examination manages to be both expansive and particular – it encompasses the broad sociocultural trends and biases that perpetuate women’s poverty, but also renders comprehensible the fluctuations and implications of recent welfare policies. Scholarly, passionate, and forceful, this book is a must-have resource for psychologists, educators, social service professionals, and policy-makers whose work interfaces with issues of social class and social justice.
—Professor Laura Smith, Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University

In a time of obscene economic inequality, Heather Bullock’s Women and Poverty: Psychology, Public Policy and Social Justice is essential reading. Scholarly and passionate, this book reveals the ways in which poverty is gendered, illuminates the costs of poverty to women and to our entire society, and gives us the tools to challenge class bias and advance just social policies.
—Professor Deborah Belle, Department of Psychology, Boston University