There have been tremendous changes in family structure and living arrangements over the past 35 years. Between 1967 and 2003, for example, the fraction of non elderly individuals living in families headed by a single female doubled, from approximately 6 percent to 12 percent.
Since the poverty rate among those in female-headed families is typically three or four times as high as in the overall
population, such changes in the distribution of family types can have potentially large effects on poverty.
Many authors have explored the extent to which demo-