The Persisting Gender Gap in Poverty Rates in the United States

The U.S. Census Bureau has released its annual report on poverty in the United States. The data shows that in 2017, 13.6 percent of all women and girls in the United States lived in poverty. For all males, the poverty rate was 11.0 percent. The good news is that the poverty rate for women and girls dropped from 16.3 percent in 2012 to 13.6 percent in 2017. However, the gender gap persists.

For those under the age of 18, girls are only slightly more likely to be in poverty than males of that age group. But the gender gap in poverty rates grows as women get older. Some 13 percent of women aged 18 to 64 in 2017 were in poverty compared to 9.4 percent of men in that age group. For those over 65 years of age in 2017, 10.5 percent of older women lived in poverty compared to 7.5 percent of older men.

In 2017, only 4.9 percent of married couple families lived in poverty. For families headed by a single man, 12.4 percent of all families were poor. But for families headed by a single woman, 25.7 percent of all families were poor. Obviously, these women have major disadvantages in access to higher education, a path that might provide them a way out of poverty.