The Failure of the Family Structure

Taking a look at Wilson and his “evidence” that he provides on the causes of the underclass it is clear that welfare is not the cause of a rise in poverty as restrictions on welfare programs were imposed yet poverty did fall, but instead rates remained the same. So what exactly did cause the rise of the underclass and the places of poverty that we know today? A major cause Wilson believes this to be is the lack of solid family structure and economic factors such as joblessness. When I hear “joblessness” I think of the most recent recession in the 2000s when I was in high school, and I remember hearing how hard it was to get a job. For some I imagine this is how it is like all the time while being even more difficult to find even a job that pays minimum wage. The idea of joblessness within a community is rough because it affects all of the dynamics of a community which Wilson sees. To Wilson, Joblessness causes issues of family solidarity and takes away from the potential “marriageable pool” which ultimately led to problems in family structure and solidarity.  Wilson does have flaws with his argument though, as the “marriageable pool” does not consist only of looking for a man with a job. Even if Wilson does view everything in an economic perspective, one can argue that women naturally do look for men who can provide and they have evolved biologically to do so but it is not the sole reason one marries. Wilson points at that from 1940 to 1983 the percentage of black female headed households has more than doubled from 17.9% in 1940 to 41.9% in 1983. It was in this same time period that poverty levels, joblessness, and the underclass swelled. Wilson says that “these families are increasingly plagued by poverty” and these independent women comprise a greater proportion of single mothers than ever before. Out of wedlock births increased and mothers were getting younger and Wilson says almost 40 percent of all illegitimate births are to women under the age of twenty. It is quite clear that younger mothers tend to have less education, work experience, and fewer resources than mothers who planned to have children. Wilson gives us a statistic that says 46 percent of all poor families were female headed households in 1982 and looking at this is there can possibly a direct relationship between the two variables. Why exactly do women in the underclass tend to have more children? Perhaps it is the reason that in the lower class culture having a child is not as look down upon as compared to middle or upper class. In the underclass having a child may be seen as more of a right of passage in becoming an adult, even though it hurts their chances for the future.  

According to Wilson Joblessness increases the family structure instability and in some ghettos like the old section 8 housing Cabrini Green in Chicago jobs were non existent causing family structure failure and just an all around increase in poverty. Even those fathers who did have jobs did not marry the mother of their child as welfare benefits seemed to be better for the family. Going back to the argument of Welfare that Wilson brings up, it is obvious that it is not the cause of poverty but what if it is just fuel being thrown on the fire? Poverty can be seen as a growing fire, and perhaps welfare was the gasoline that was thrown on the fire only making the fire grow and spread. Maybe Welfare did its job in some places while in others people sat back and collected checks when they did not deserve it. Another problem with Wilson’s argument is that during this time the feminist movement was taking place and women wanted equal rights and be seen as independent. Perhaps because of this movement more women saw themselves as independent and this caused more female headed households. Also Wilson never mentioned white female headed families in his arguments. Even though almost a fifth of white households happened to be female headed households Wilson never brought this up. This is a vital flaw in his arguments about female households. My parents were divorced and one can consider my household to be a female headed household I am living proof that a family is not automatically in the underclass because of a female headed household. Even though Wilson’s argument makes a lot of sense it has plenty of flaws like his economic perspective on the “marriageable pool” or the lack of evidence on white female headed households.