economic self-sufficiency: it's not just money

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http://aff.sagepub.com/ Affilia http://aff.sagepub.com/content/8/4/368 The online version of this article can be found at: DOI: 10.1177/088610999300800402 1993 8: 368 Affilia Elizabeth A. Gowdy and Sue Pearlmutter Economic Self-Sufficiency: It's Not Just Money Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com can be found at: Affilia Additional services and information for http://aff.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts: http://aff.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Permissions: http://aff.sagepub.com/content/8/4/368.refs.html Citations: What is This? - Dec 1, 1993 Version of Record >> at University of Waikato Library on July 9, 2014 aff.sagepub.com Downloaded from at University of Waikato Library on July 9, 2014 aff.sagepub.com Downloaded from

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Page 1: Economic Self-Sufficiency: It's Not Just Money

http://aff.sagepub.com/Affilia

http://aff.sagepub.com/content/8/4/368The online version of this article can be found at:

 DOI: 10.1177/088610999300800402

1993 8: 368AffiliaElizabeth A. Gowdy and Sue Pearlmutter

Economic Self-Sufficiency: It's Not Just Money  

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http://www.sagepublications.com

can be found at:AffiliaAdditional services and information for    

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- Dec 1, 1993Version of Record >>

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Economic Self-Sufficiency:It’s Not Just Money

Elizabeth A. Gowdy and Sue Pearlmutter

Definitions of economic self-sufficiency that are used by public pro-grams fail to recognize the reality and experiences of low-incomewomen. An analysis of data on economic self-sufficiency, gatheredfrom 244 low-income women at the Women’s Employment Networkin Kansas City, Missouri, resulted in the discovery of four factorsunderlying this concept: (1) autonomy and self-determination, (2)financial security and responsibility, (3) family and self well-being,and (4) basic assets for living in the community. The policy andpractice implications of these findings are explored.

U.S. social welfare policy can trace its roots to the ElizabethanPoor Laws of the 17th century. Attempting to place some re-sponsibility for care of the poor with England’s governmentalauthorities, these laws established the first work incentive pro-grams. Apprenticeships were created for children; work wasfound for the &dquo;able-bodied&dquo;; and those who were ill or incapac-itated, the &dquo;deserving poor,&dquo; were provided institutional orhome care. Similar Poor Laws, requiring that aid be distributed

Authors’ Note: The research on which this article was based was partiallyfunded by these Kansas City, Missouri, sponsors: Ruth B. Stem Trust, Hall-mark Corporate Fund, Oppenstein Brothers Foundation, and Village Presby-terian Church.

AFFILIA, Vol. 8 No. 4, Wmter 1993 368-387© 1993 Sage Publications, Inc.

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through local communities, were soon enacted in several Amer-ican colonies. Financial aid or &dquo;outdoor relief&dquo; was given topeople in their homes; indentured servitude was used to pro-vide work for the able-bodied; and institutional relief, in theform of almshouses and workhouses, was established for oth-ers in need. Work was seen as a way out of poverty. BecauseAmerica had a great demand for labor, it was thought thateveryone could work her or his way out of poverty and the needfor public aid (Abramovitz, 1988; Sidel, 1986).

Although the Poor Laws long ago surrendered to far morehumane measures for assisting the poor, the attitudes inherentin them remain a part of this country’s policies and values.Distinctions are still made between those who are considered

deserving and those who are not. The morality of those whoneed help is continually judged by those who provide theassistance. Work retains its status as the best and often only wayout of poverty. Indeed, according to Ellwood (1988),

the work ethic is fundamental to our conceptions of ourselvesand our expectations of others. People ought to work hard notonly to provide for their families, but because laziness andidleness are seen as indications of weak moral character. The idlerich command as much disdain as jealousy; the idle poor arescorned. (p. 16)

EVOLUTION OF PUBLIC ASSISTANCE

Historically, assistance to the poor implied assistance to &dquo;thosewho clearly could not be expected to work&dquo; (Ellwood, 1988,p. 27)-worthy white widows and their children-and to thosewho could be put to work-persons who were able-bodied.Today, the majority of governmental assistance to the poor isaimed at women and their children. As a result of the passageof Title IV of the 1935 Social Security Act, the Aid to DependentChildren program (since 1962, the Aid to Families with Depen-dent Children [AFDC]) was established, and children ofwomen who were widowed or otherwise without &dquo;breadwin-ners&dquo; were given assistance. This was a means-tested tier of

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support, protected by federal sponsorship but administered bythe states, available only to those with severely limited incomesand viewed as a temporary measure (Ellwood, 1988). It must berecognized that this support was expected to be used for thecare of children, rather than to meet the needs of mothers (Sidel,1986). Families who received aid were those in which the singleremaining parent, most often the mother, was not expected towork. Early in the program’s history, it was believed that assis-tance would keep the mother at home, taking care of her family,and would preserve another societal value-the &dquo;primacy ofthe family&dquo; (Ellwood,1988). As Ellwood noted,

The nuclear family is still the primary social and economic unit,and, certainly, its foremost responsibility is to raise children.Families are expected to socialize children, to guard their safety,to provide for their education, to impose discipline and direc-tion and to ensure their material well-being while they areyoung. (p. 16)

Throughout the past 58 years, the AFDC program has beensubject to significant modifications, yet much has been con-stant. Clearly, racism and misogyny have played roles duringthis time. In 1936, the U.S. Children’s Bureau reported that 96percent of the recipients were white (Sidel, 1986). In recentyears, statistics have been used to overemphasize the numberof African American recipients, perpetuating the myth thatwelfare recipients are predominantly women of color. Through-out this time, women who have required AFDC have been seenas deficient, lacking legal attachment to a man, and failing toadhere to normative social values (Abramovitz, 1988). Policieshave been unfairly and inconsistently applied, forcing peopleout of the system. Families who receive assistance subsist wellbelow the government’s established poverty levels. For the pastseveral years, the requirement that women move out of thewelfare system to gain self-sufficiency by working has becomethe most significant and most widely discussed element of theprogram (Abramovitz, 1988; Ellwood, 1988; Miller,1990; Sidel,1986).

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Requirements That Women Work

During its early years, AFDC accounted for only a minuteportion of the dollars spent on social welfare (social security,unemployment benefits, and welfare assistance), and the smallamounts spent went to single mothers, who, consistent withtraditional norms, were not expected to work outside the home(Ellwood, 1988). Once women began moving into the laborforce in significant numbers, the welfare system as it hadexisted raised questions for policymakers. Professionals beganto express the view that those receiving welfare suffered fromsome &dquo;psychological flaw&dquo; (Miller,1990, p. 34) and had becomeunhealthily dependent on the system of cash benefits thatwelfare provided. &dquo;Treatment,&dquo; in the form of social services,would eliminate that problem. Although social services becamean integral part of the welfare system, they did not reduce thenumber of people receiving welfare. Policymakers recognizedthat welfare programs were not temporary and, in fact, hadexpanded greatly; that families needed continued support, ed-ucation, and training to maintain themselves; and that if thegovernment cut less than $1 in welfare benefits for every dollarearned, work incentives would increase. The combined effectsof the social changes of the 1960s; a rapidly growing economy;the mass movement of women into the labor force in low-paying,service sector jobs; and changes in attitudes about the poor ledto the demand that welfare recipients, whether they were moth-ers or not, should go to work. Concern with the welfare ofchildren was replaced with concern for reducing welfarecaseloads as the focus shifted to ways to decrease the ever-

increasing welfare budget (Abramovitz, 1988; Ellwood, 1988;Miller, 1990).Work and training programs had been an implicit and ex-

plicit part of the AFDC program since 1954. The focus on workas a solution to poverty was most obvious in the 1967 amend-ments in which, for the first time, &dquo;the state began treating theentire caseload as ’undeserving,’ redoubling its efforts to chan-nel AFDC mothers into the labor market&dquo; (Abramovitz, 1988,

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p. 337). The message was clear: &dquo;Recipients should be obligatedto become self-sufficient in exchange for government assistance&dquo;(Abramovitz, p. 340, emphasis added). Implicit in these amend-ments was the belief that poor women were unmotivated and

unwilling to work. The task of the Work Incentive Program(WIN) and subsequent welfare-to-work programs was to helpwomen become self-sufficient so that they would no longerneed to depend on others.

Concept of Self-Sufficiency

The concept of self-sufficiency, bom in the WIN program, con-tinues in the newest AFDC reforms, the Family Support Act of1988. According to regulations for implementing the Job Op-portunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) program (one component ofthe Family Support Act),

the objectives of the JOBS program, to provide training, educa-tion, job placement, and employment to end welfare depen-dency, will result in more secure and stable family units. For twoparent families, the Statute provides State options for the partic-ipation of both parents, thus enlisting each in the drive towardindependence. The potential danger to family self-image, stabil-ity and marital commitment posed by welfare dependencyincreases as a family remains on welfare. The decrease independency and increase in self-sufficiency which the Statute isdesigned to achieve will help strengthen families and amelioratethe erosive effects of poverty ... a strong family structure iscritical for the nation’s economic strength, and is an importantsource of values that promote the work ethic. (Federal Register,1989, p. 42148)

The words and concepts that define this program areclearly from earlier legislation: Strong and stable families com-bined with work will produce self-sufficiency. But what is self-sufficiency ? Federal policymakers give no explicit definition,except to note that it is obtained through work, that it includesfreedom from dependence on welfare, and that it strengthensfamilies. Clearly, politicians see self-sufficiency as a mechanismfor reducing the number of people receiving welfare. Some states

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have been more explicit. For example, Maine’s Division of WelfareEmployment (A Path to Self-Sufficiency, 1985) offered this definition:An economically self-sufficient individual is one who is able toprovide food, clothing, shelter, transportation, child care, med-ical expenses, insurance, and basic recreation for a family withearned income and who no longer requires aid from publicassistance programs. (p. 1)

Although definitions such as this seem adequate, they areseriously flawed. The first, and most egregious, flaw is theexclusion of input from women on welfare. There have beennumerous studies of the effects of poverty on low-incomewomen (Auslander & Litwin, 1988; Axinn & Stern, 1987;Donovan, Jaffe, & Pirie, 1987; Wolock, Geismar, Lagay, & Raiffe,1986), on the women’s personal characteristics and behavior(Chrissinger, 1980; Goodwin, 1972; Rein & Rainwater, 1978;Shepard & Pence, 1988), and on the inadequacies of programs(Dickenson, 1986; Mason, Wodarski, & Parham, 1985; Miller,1989; Moscovice, Craig, & Pitt, 1987; Ritter & Danzinger, 1983).However, there have been no studies or other accounts of whatlow-income women say they want, how they view economicself-sufficiency (ESS), or their suggestions for ways that pro-grams can help them achieve it (Miller, 1989). Even the FamilySupport Act has been criticized for failing to incorporate theexperiences of previous workfare programs (Herr, Halpern, &

Conrad, 1991; Miller, 1989). Clearly, current definitions of ESSreflect the political and historical climate in which the poor havebeen offered aid in this country, but not their concerns.The second flaw is that the definition implies that ESS is a

dichotomous condition: A woman either is or is not economi-

cally self-sufficient; she either has or does not have sufficientearned income, and she either is or is not receiving publicassistance. Although the definition fits with the views of poli-cymakers who wish to limit welfare programs severely, it doesnot fit with the perceptions of low-income women who are mostaffected by it. Using Maine’s definition, one of the authorsasked 18 low-income women to say whether they consideredthemselves economically self-sufficient (Gowdy & Pearlmutter,

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in press). Nine said no, six said yes, and three declined toanswer. Yet, whether they saw themselves as economicallyself-sufficient was unrelated to their employment status, in-come levels, job history, education, race, age, or family size. Allhad difficulty responding, stating there was more to ESS thanjust having or not having it. Psychological satisfaction withtheir current economic status and a view of themselves as

making progress toward this goal were two factors that compli-cated their ability to respond with a simple yes or no.

These responses lead to a third flaw of typical ESS definitions:The definitions tend to be all-or-nothing approaches to defininga complex construct. For example, the Maine definition impliesthat a woman would be considered economically self-sufficientonly if she is providing all the listed resources through earnedincome. The authors estimate that for a woman with two de-

pendent children to meet this standard, earned income fromfull-time employment would have to be in excess of $16,000 peryear. This estimate assumes that the woman owns a car and has

employer-provided medical insurance for herself but must payfor insurance to cover her children. Using this perspective, awoman could be working full-time, providing all the listedresources except one or two (perhaps insurance for her childrenor unsubsidized child care), and still be labeled economicallydependent. There is no middle ground, no recognition of thenormative process of accumulating these goods and resourcesover years, as all but the affluent do in this country. An all-or-nothing definition of ESS for low-income women fails to offera normalizing perspective to this construct and sets thesewomen’s economic experiences apart from those of the nonpoor.

THE STUDY

Development of the Scale

The goals of the study were to discover how low-incomewomen define ESS and to develop a tool to measure this concept

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from a client-centered perspective. The authors believed thatsuch a tool would allow for a more accurate definition andmeasurement and that the factors that would be discoveredwould result in suggestions for a more effective direction forprograms and practice to help women increase their ESS.To develop the scale, the authors drew a pool of items from

a portion of the findings of research on a focus group of low-income women affiliated with the Women’s Employment Net-work (WEN) (Gowdy & Pearlmutter, in press). WEN is a pri-vate, nonprofit agency serving low-income women in the KansasCity, Missouri, metropolitan area. Findings from the WEN proj-ect suggest that low-income women view ESS as consisting ofthree distinct but related components: (1) a monetary and re-source component, (2) a psychological aspect reflective ofBandura’s (1982) self-efficacy framework, and (3) a skill com-ponent, composed of an array of abilities and experiences de-rived from work, education, and life events. For the purposesof this study, it was decided to design a tool that would focuson the first component and flesh out the qualitative results fromthe previous WEN project with quantitative data. Research onthe remaining findings in the qualitative study-that is, onself-efficacy and the acquisition of skills-is being pursued byone of the authors.

Thus, the findings of the WEN project that related directly tohow low-income women perceived and discussed the mone-tary and resource aspect of ESS served as the primary source ofitems that were selected, as justified by the goals of the research.Other studies and accounts in the literature on women and

poverty served as a secondary source.In constructing the scale, the authors attempted to word

items clearly and to use the language of the focus group’sparticipants. Little effort was made to screen items even if theyappeared redundant or overlapping because they wished toallow the respondents’ experiences, values, and attitudes toinform the scale, rather than have professionals presuppose itsconceptual nature. Instructions on the scale were also carefully

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worded for simplicity, clarity, and ease of understanding tominimize error.A pretest of the 15-item scale with 25 women from the focus

groups and from the WEN staff, several of whom were alsoformer WEN participants, indicated that the items were welltargeted. The respondents found it easy to complete the entirescale and commented that the items covered significant areasof their ideas on the concrete-resource aspect of ESS. Severalstaff members indicated that the scale would be a helpfuldiagnostic tool in assessing and tracking the relative movementof participants in various facets of ESS.

Since the pretest, the tool (see Table 1) has been implementedon a regular basis. After entering WEN, each woman completesthe survey as a part of her personalized assessment. Every threemonths after a woman’s baseline date, she is asked to completethe scale again. In this way, the tool is used as a device formonitoring the program’s effectiveness over a two-year period.

For the initial analysis, 244 completed baseline scales wereused. The typical respondent was an urban resident, aged 29-35,who had two children and a high school degree or generalequivalency diploma. The majority of women were AfricanAmerican (76 percent), 15 percent were white, and the remain-der (9 percent) were members of other ethnic-racial groups.Almost three fourths (73 percent) of the sample were singleheads of households; 14 percent were separated or divorced, 6percent were widowed, and 7 percent were married. Approxi-mately two thirds were receiving AFDC, and the remainder metfederal poverty guidelines.

Item and Scale Analyses

Ongoing use of the ESS survey with WEN participants pro-vided an opportunity to obtain a sufficient number of responses(n = 244) to conduct an item analysis (Nunnally & Durham,1975) and a factor analysis using the SPSS/PC+ statistical pack-age. The purpose of this initial investigation was to discern if

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TABLE 1: WEN Economic Self-Sufficiency Survey

the scale could be reduced to fewer items that would show bothincreased measurement reliability and construct validity.The 15 items were examined using each item’s correlation to

the total scale score, the scale alpha if the item was excluded,and the correlation of the items to each other. A factor analysis

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was also conducted to examine item clusters and the loading ofindividual items onto the identified factors. An item would be

kept in the scale (1) if it was conceptually dissimilar to another,(2) if it had a high item-to-total correlation, (3) if the scale wouldhave a lower alpha value if the item was excluded, and (4) if ithad a high factor loading. Although there were numericalguidelines for the criteria, the conceptual nature of an item wasof primary importance. Three items failed to meet all thesecriteria but were not eliminated because they met at least onecriterion and no other item was conceptually similar. Theseitems were &dquo;afford decent child care&dquo;; &dquo;afford to have a decentcar&dquo;; and &dquo;be free from government programs like AFDC, foodstamps, general assistance, etc.&dquo; From the findings of this firstanalysis, none of the items was eliminated; the result was a15-item scale with a standardized item alpha of .89, indicatinga high level of reliability.

Because no items were eliminated, results from the scale’sinitial factor analysis were used to identify the underlyingconstructs of ESS. The factor analysis conducted was a principalcomponents extraction using varimax rotation and aneigenvalue of 1.00 and greater to define factors. Four factorswere identified (see Table 2). From a psychometric view, thescale constitutes a reliable measurement instrument, with eachitem meaningfully contributing to the scale.

Conceptual Structure of the Scale

The goal of the study was to determine if an instrument for ESScould be developed, based on data gathered from low-incomewomen seeking greater ESS, which is different in importantways from available definitions and measures of this construct.Because the study was exploratory, there was no formal hypoth-esis with which to compare women’s patterns of responses.The factor analysis was conducted to identify patterns of

responses and to group scale items that the respondents evalu-ated similarly. An examination of the content of the item clusters(factors) centered on the factors’ conceptual similarity and their

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TABLE 2: Factor Analysis of the Economic Self-sufficiency Scalea

a. Except where noted as percentages, values indicate factor loadings.

relationship to the authors’ previous qualitative research on thesubject (see Gowdy & Pearlmutter, in press), as well as to theprofessional literature.The first factor consists of five items that explain 38.4 percent

of the total variance. On the surface, these items initially appeardisparate, but further examination of their content indicates afactor best described as personal freedom and self-determination.Items that make up this factor appear to speak to a woman’ssense of control over the direction of her life and to the conditionof being economically self-sufficient. Pursuing her own inter-ests and goals; doing what she wants to do when she wants todo it; and being able to travel, buy extras for herself and her

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I

family, and save money are items that imply the ability tochoose and make decisions.

Traditionally, ESS definitions have attended only to the finan-cial and concrete statuses of women, such as earning certainwage levels and fringe benefits or getting off welfare rolls. Incontrast, this factor reflects a perspective of ESS held by low-income women that actual wage levels and benefit amounts

may be secondary to the relative amount of autonomy andself-determination they experience in their lives on a dailybasis. This finding is supported by the results of the focus groupin which ESS was defined as a frame of mind. One participant’scomment illustrates this point:

The place I live in is only $300 a month; it’s a little bitty smallthing. But I’m so satisfied with ME and what I’M doing-I’mlike HEY! So that’s why I feel I’m self-sufficient, because I’mdoing this and doing that. So I don’t think about what I’m NOTdoing or DON’T have, because what I don’t have is not impor-tant. What I have now is important. I’m not going backwards.(Gowdy & Pearlmutter, in press)

There is a subjective aspect to ESS, then, that low-incomewomen judge and experience, regardless of the actual monetaryamount of their resources. This factor introduces a relativity toESS definitions that traditionally have been much more abso-lute. Being economically self-sufficient may depend as much ona woman’s sense of satisfaction with herself and her economicsituation as on her actual earnings. Another participant madethis point:

I’m tired of these old &dquo;do nothing&dquo; jobs, just wasting my time,looking up at the ceiling, even though I have a paycheck. But thepaycheck doesn’t make me feel that good. It does what it issupposed to do, pay the basic things ... but it doesn’t make mefeel good on the inside and that is what I’m looking for. (Gowdy &Pearlmutter, in press)

An additional finding supporting this factor is that the itempertaining to freedom from governmental programs loadedalmost equally on this factor and the last one. This item speaksdirectly to the relationship of one’s economic status to a sense

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of personal freedom and self-determination, because indepen-dence from governmental programs means freedom from insti-tutionally imposed constraints, rules, and control. The idea thatthese items group conceptually into an important, but hereto-fore neglected, aspect of ESS is further reinforced by the group-ing of the remaining three factors, each of which represents acollection of items that cluster conceptually and statisticallyinto factors that have traditionally been recognized as repre-senting facets of ESS.The second factor, consisting of four items and accounting

for 8.7 percent of the total variance, is directly related to financialsecurity and responsibility. Being able &dquo;to stay on a budget,&dquo;&dquo;meet my obligations,&dquo; &dquo;make payments on debts,&dquo; and &dquo;paymy own way without borrowing from family or friends&dquo; areitems that are related both conceptually and statistically.The third factor, composed of three items related to family and

self well-being, accounts for 7.4 percent of the total variance. Thethree items involve the ability to provide basic child and healthcare needs, including food in adequate amounts and qualityGiven the national attention to inadequate systems of child careand health care services, it is not surprising that low-incomewomen view these items as being related and essential to theirESS. For single parents with primary responsibility for thewell-being of themselves and their children, the lack of afford-able, accessible, and reliable health or child care can, in itself,determine whether they become and remain economically self-sufficient.The final factor consists of three items that may best be

termed basic assets for community living and explains 6.8 percentof the total variance. The first two items are clear-cut: the abilityto afford a reliable car and decent housing. The U.S. culture hasevolved to the point where cars are a necessary resource forfinding and keeping jobs; transporting children to and fromschool, doctor’s appointments, and child care; and obtainingfood, clothing, and shelter. Public transportation systems, whenthey exist, are generally inadequate and unsafe, especially forsingle women with young children. Housing is obviously an-

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other basic need and one whose cost is becoming increasinglyprohibitive for many. A study of 334 low-income families foundthat housing costs consumed 57 percent of their monthly in-comes (Moscovice et al., 1987).

The third item loading on this factor concerns being free frompublic assistance programs. As was mentioned earlier, this itemloaded almost equally on the first (.51) and fourth (.53) factors.Possible explanations for the association of this item with theability to have decent housing and a reliable car is that receiptof public assistance is directly associated with the affordabilityof the other two. Another explanation may be psychologicalrather than monetary, in that low-income women may perceivethe negative social stigma attached to the receipt of welfare asa barrier to living in the community. Along with having a nicehome and a decent car, most &dquo;respectable&dquo; citizens take pride inavoiding public aid. Thus, the loading of this item into the fourthfactor may relate to the women’s need to gain acceptable socialstatus through freedom from public programs. Consequently,one could argue for the placement of this item in either factor.

Given the scale analysis and item clustering, the authorssuggest that the ESS instrument consists of four dimensions.These dimensions are (1) autonomy and self-determination, (2)financial security and responsibility, (3) family and self well-being, and (4) basic assets for living in the community.

DISCUSSION

For policymakers and professionals who are concerned withenhancing women’s ESS, the implications are clear. ESS is notjust about money. It is not about a dichotomous condition oneeither has or does not have. It is about a way of living. Forlow-income women to experience it, they must have self-worth,freedom, and a sense of future as much as concrete resources.Policies that focus on work as the only mechanism for achievingESS do not permit a complete view of the dimensions of thisconstruct. Just as the word economic is vital to the phrase, so, too,

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is the word self-sufficiency. Even when the development of thetool sought to focus only on what appeared to be the concreteeconomic and resource component of the ESS definition, afactor appeared that was related directly to women’s sense ofself as autonomous and self-determining. In an extensive studyof 13 successful programs for low-income women, Okagaki(1989) found that methodical attention to building women’sself-esteem, life skills education, economic motivation, andsocial support, integrated with job training, placement, andresource development, was the key to successful outcomes.

This finding may confuse professionals. For example, whenthe authors shared these results with a social work educator, theresponse was, &dquo;But self-esteem and money are two different

things entirely!&dquo; This type of dichotomous thinking by policy-makers and service providers is part of the problem rather thanof the solution. Berlin (1990) critiqued social work researchersand practitioners for supporting bipolar thinking in situationsin which the recognition of complex relationships among &dquo;op-posites&dquo; would increase their understanding and effectiveness.A solution to blending these opposites can be found in researchthat views ESS as a continuum, a developmental process in-volving movement through various stages of personal andeconomic growth (see, for example, Gowdy & Pearlmutter, inpress; Herr et al., 1991; Okagaki, 1989). As Okagaki noted,&dquo;different women will fall on different points in the continuum&dquo;(p. 31).

These findings may help elucidate the mixed results of publicworkfare programs’ attempts to help poor women becomeeconomically self-sufficient. Given that women recognize anemotive and psychological component to ESS, in which theexercise of personal power and freedom is an important aspectto being economically self-sufficient, then the very design ofmost programs serves to undermine the goal they attempt toattain. Traditionally, public welfare programs have focusedinterventions on economics and tended to ignore the secondand equally important part of the phrase. Synonyms for theword sufficient include capable, competent, adequate, respectable,

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effective, proficient, and successful. It would seem almost humor-ous (were it not that so much human suffering has occurred)that professionals who are intimately involved with this issuewould overlook the very meaning of the words they attempt torealize. For example, Burghardt and Gordon (1990) found thatprograms that incorporated basic education and training in thedevelopment of skills into vocational training and job place-ments that were of personal interest to the women were moresuccessful than were those that required women to complete apredesigned and inflexible service track. Blending agendas toensure that women experience some autonomy and choice inthe programs in which they participate is essential.

Unfortunately, AFDC payment limitations, group literacylevels, eligibility rules for public housing, the duration of train-ing episodes, and job placement rates continue to dominatediscussions of ESS, while systematic attention to increasing theautonomy, self-determination, and power of poor women isrelegated to the side of policymakers’ desks and practitioners’agendas. The designs of public programs tend to limit women’sfreedom and choice and to shift control over decisions from thewomen to workers and agencies. These programs also tend toimpose a view that leaving welfare is a distinct occurrence thathinges on a woman’s ability to stick with various job training,placement, or education programs. In fact, some of the hardestwork occurs long af ler &dquo;placement and termination&dquo; as womennegotiate the foreign worlds of skill development and self-development, work, school, and changing economic status.

It must be stated here that the women in this study see workas important and significant to achieving their goals; for them,work and financial gain are means, not ends in themselves. Thework must be of their choosing, something they want and enjoydoing. However, in this changing economy, the kinds of workavailable to these relatively inexperienced and untrainedwomen are such that they will not be able to move out ofpoverty and into independence. The current recession has seenthe loss of millions of jobs that were essential to the FamilySupport Act’s success. The program requires that recipients

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work, yet it provides an insufficient number of education andtraining slots; child care is extremely limited (and the quality ofcare is seldom discussed); health care all but disappears oncetransitional services have ended; services have little relevanceto the skills required in the economy; and the number of unsub-sidized, well-paying jobs is totally insufficient (Handler &

Hasenfeld, 1991). Although welfare reform has become acatchphrase, it is clear that vast inequities remain. Even whenwomen want to participate as full partners, the resources avail-able are few and heavily controlled by the marketplace.

CONCLUSION

Helping women maintain and consolidate their incrementalgains demands a view of ESS as a personal journey that can takeextended amounts of time and support (Herr et al., 1991;Okagaki, 1989; Ritter & Danzinger, 1983). As quoted in Herret al. (1991) K. Auletta’s study of supported work programsfound that individual achievement and programmatic successmust be calculated not &dquo; ’by touchdown passes, but by grindingout two, three, four yards at a time’ &dquo; (p. 316). A shift in perspec-tive is required so that poor women are viewed as employedand unemployed citizens rather than as &dquo;welfare mothers&dquo;

(Zinn & Sarri, 1984), with the capacity for growth and thepotential for change and so that multiple routes out of povertyare supported (Herr et al., 1991).We must recognize, rather than deny, the realities of the

marketplace. Personal strengths and needs, as well as awoman’s goals for herself and her family, should be assessed inlight of the changing economy. That economy may dictate thatsome women remain at home until they are able to participatein long-term training and to develop the necessary skills,whereas other women require extended supports and transi-tional assistance until they are able to locate work at a wage thatpermits them to achieve their goals. What is most important isthat women learn ways to overcome the obstacles in their lives,

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whether these obstacles are environmental or personal. Finally,social workers must see themselves as advocates for the womenwith whom they work. Perhaps Bertha Reynolds’s (Reynolds,1951 / 1975) philosophy holds the key to making programs moreresponsive to the reality and desires of women who are seekinggreater ESS:

What a client has to work with in [herselfl, is a better startingpoint than an attempt to make [her] accept her failure,and ... building [her] up as a person makes [her] more ready,rather than less so, to go farther to further growth and accom-plishment. It is not on record that recognition and upbuildingare painful experiences to endure. (pp. 33-34)

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Elizabeth A. Gowdy is a research assistant and doctoral student, School ofSocial Welfare, University of Kansas, Lawrence; she was formerly EvaluationSpecialist, Women’s Employment Network (WEN), Kansas City, Missouri.Sue Pearl mutter is agraduate teaching assistant and doctoral student, Schoolof Social Welfare, University of Kansas, and was formerly Executive Directorof WEN.

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