The two social problems of the most concern to me are poverty and familial violence. Familial violence can and does occur in all social classes; however, there is a positive correlation between being poor and being a victim or perpetrator of domestic violence and child abuse. This essay will focus on familial violence as it relates to those who are also poverty-stricken Americans rather than discussing these social problems on a global level.
Poverty is defined as the state of having significantly less income and wealth than the average person in the society of which one is a member. Most people automatically imagine a third world country when they hear about poverty. The poor in America don’t necessarily attract the same media attention as the poor in third world and developing nations. However, the number of Americans living in poverty and the social problems caused by their situation are very real crisis. According to the Institute for Research on Poverty:
“In 2005, the poverty rate for families was 9.9 percent, comprising 7.7 million families. Of all family groups, poverty is highest among those headed by single women. In 2005, 28.7 percent of all female-headed families (4 million families) were poor, compared to 5.1 percent of married-couple families (2.9 million families).”[i]
The United States has a much larger percentage of its people living in poverty than in any other industrial society. In North America, poor people aren’t only constantly confronted by the wealth they do not have, but they are also often blamed for their economic situations. Americans tend to have a very callous attitude toward the poor. There are many consequences of poverty in America. Some of the consequences most relevant to the topic of this paper are family instability and economic uncertainty. The poor have far higher rates of family instability than any other socioeconomic group (i.e.: younger marriages, higher rates of divorce, separations, family violence, and out of marriage childbirth) and this instability increases the likelihood of becoming poor and staying poor. Economic uncertainty also plagues the poor. Most people raised in poverty are uneducated or have minimal education. Many can’t read or write. There are not many permanent and well-paying positions for these people. The unemployment rate among those living in poverty is very high. Even the working poor are often in very low paying jobs that are often temporary and have a very high turnover rate. All of these conditions create feelings of inadequacy, frustration, and anger. Poor Americans often use their families as the outlet for these emotions.
Family violence is comprised of intimate partner violence, child sexual abuse, and child neglect; the lower a family’s economic and social status, the more likely that there is family violence. A volatile family wrought with poverty and instability is a fertile breeding ground for familial violence. Poor Americans usually grow up in intergenerational poverty, or poverty that has persisted through several generations. Family abuse, also, tends to be passed down through generations.
“The intergenerational transmission of violence hypothesis states that children who are maltreated are more likely to grow up to become maltreating parents than are children who are not victimized. This hypothesis has been a part of professional literature for several decades. As early as the 1960’s, researchers…put forth the claim that acts of aggression and aggressive behaviors between family members tend to continue across generations.[ii]
Studies suggest that anywhere from 3.3 to 10 million children witness some form of domestic violence annually.[iii] As I discussed earlier, there is a very high rate of family violence in poor families-
Studies consistently show that at least 50 to 60 percent of women receiving welfare have experienced physical abuse by an intimate partner at some point during their adult lives, compared to 22 percent of the general population; some studies indicate rates as high as 82 percent. A significant number of women receiving welfare also report a history of physical and sexual abuse in childhood.[iv]
And this violence manifests itself through the generations that follow.
In order to find solutions to poverty and familial abuse in American families, we must help these families to break the cycles of intergenerational abuse and poverty. Education and support services are crucial to help poor Americans develop marketable skills so that there is equal access to economic stability. Counseling for abuse victims and social assistance programs to assist abusers in managing or preventing their abusive tendencies are also vital so that the cycle of abuse can be stopped.
[i] Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison, http://www.irp.wisc.edu/faqs/faq3.htm (Last Updated: 12 March, 2007).
[ii] Lynette M. Renner and Kristen Shook Slack, Intimate Partner Violence and Child Maltreatment: Understanding Co-occurrence and Intergenerational Connections, Discussion Paper no. 1278-04, March 2004, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin, http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/dps/dpabs2004.htm#DP1278-04 , (Last Updated: 12 March, 2007).
[iii] Carlson, Bonnie E. (1984). Children’s observations of interpersonal violence. Pp. 147-167 in A.R. Roberts (Ed.) Battered women and their families (pp. 147-167). NY: Springer. Straus, M.A. (1992). Children as witnesses to marital violence: A risk factor for lifelong problems among a nationally representative sample of American men and women. Report of the Twenty-Third Ross Roundtable. Columbus, OH: Ross Laboratories.
[iv] Family Violence Prevention Fund, http://endabuse.org/resources/facts/Welfare.pdf, Copyright 2007 Family Violence Prevention Fund
