Determinants of poverty among rural and urban women who live alone

Found that on the average, 30% of the elderly women who live alone and 21% of the younger women are in poverty. Multivariate analyses of poverty rates based on data from the 1980 census indicate that lack of participation in the labor force, lower levels of education, and being under 20 or over 50 years of age explain much of the variance for younger women. For elderly women, the most important variables were whether they had only Social Security income, had less education, and were nonwhite. (Abstract amended)