Gender, race/ethnicity, and poverty in later life

A feminization of poverty among the elderly, as among the general population, of the United States has been documented both with aggregate and with individual-level data. Several scholars have recently argued that this feminization is not homogeneous by race/ethnicity. Using individual-level data from a survey representative of the resident population aged 55 or older in Florida, we examine the intersections of gender and race/ethnicity in the distribution of poverty risk at older ages. While the analyses offer some detailed specification of the conditions of poverty, they offer no evidence of gender-race/ethnic interactions in the likelihood of poverty.