Women’s Poverty
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 1 in 4 families with children under the age of 18 are headed by a single parent and more than 3 out of 4 single parent families are headed by a female. Insufficient income and employment opportunities have placed a significant number of households headed by a female below the poverty level. According to 2015 Census Bureau data, 15.5 percent of individuals and 5.6 percent of married couples live in poverty. In contrast, 30.6 percent of families with a female householder, and no husband present, are below the poverty level. Of these, 40.5 percent have children under 18 years old and 46.3 percent have children only under 5 years of age.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Living in a financially underprivileged state can negatively affect the quality of these families’ lives and prevent mothers from rising above the poverty line to afford the comfort and stability of homeownership. As we will now address, even in the process of home buying, women face persistent obstacles.
Discrimination in Mortgage Lending
The current homeownership rate in the U.S. is 63.6 percent, but the rates among different racial and ethnic groups vary considerably. The rate of homeownership for whites is 71.1 percent; for Asians, 57.8 percent; for African Americans, 41.9 percent; and for Hispanics, 45.2 percent. Difficulty in receiving credit, institutional discrimination in mortgage lending and disparities in home values are obstacles facing minorities, especially low-income women of color and their families, according to Dr. Sharon Lindhorst Everhardt, of Troy University.
NAWRB - 2017 Women in Housing Ecosystem Report 28