Determinants of Informal Social Help Among Women Enduring Marital Separation and Poverty

Shichao Du () and Peter D. Brandon
Additional contact information
Shichao Du: Fudan University
Peter D. Brandon: University at Albany, the State University of New York

Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 2025, vol. 46, issue 2, No 3, 360-372

Abstract: Abstract The private economic assistance that women experiencing poverty can potentially receive during a marital separation has been largely overlooked. This study investigates determinants of economic aid from family, friends, and private community organizations among women experiencing marital separation and poverty. Such private social help may make the difference between an informal but flexible support network and a formal but routine social safety net. Using panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), this study found that the odds of a woman receiving private help to make ends meet during a period of marital separation and poverty were associated with her human capital, command over marital assets, employment, and duration of the separation. Separated women with fewer economic resources or more urgent economic needs were more likely to receive informal social help. The growing dependency on private assistance over the duration of marital separation also suggests the chronic strain model that economic hardship is a chronic stress for women after separation.

Keywords: Marital separation; Poverty; Duration of separation; Informal social help; Economic resource (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10834-024-09970-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jfamec:v:46:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s10834-024-09970-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... es/journal/10834/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10834-024-09970-y

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Family and Economic Issues is currently edited by Joyce Serido

More articles in Journal of Family and Economic Issues from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().