Ethnic and Residence Differences among poor Families

Ethnic and Residence Differences among poor FamiliesAuthor(s): NANCY G. KUTNER and MICHAEL H. KUTNERSource: Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3 (AUTUMN 1987), pp. 463-470Published by: Dr. George KurianStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41601436 .

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RESEARCH NOTE

Ethnic and Residence Differences

among poor Families*

NANCY G. KUTNER** and MICHAEL H. KUTNER***

Anthropologist Oscar Lewis (1959, 1966a, 1966b, 1968) argued that economically disadvantaged people demonstrate "remarkable similarity in the structure of their families" and in their lifestyle. He listed some 60 characteristics supposedly shared by impoverished individuals and families. Moreover, Lewis argued that this social class effect overrides both ethnic subcultural differences and rural-urban differences within nations. This paper investigates the latter generalizations, by comparing data obtained from families differing in both ethnicity and place of residence.

Lewis' subculture of poverty thesis was critiqued by scholars such as Roach and Gursslin, 1967; Valentine, 1969; Leeds, 1971; Ryan, 1971; and Winter, 1971. According to Leeds (1971), the issues surrounding Lewis' argument were theoretical-conceptual, methodological, and ethical-civic in nature. Within the first category, Leeds identified three sub-issues: (a) Lewis' imprecise use of the term culture-, (b) the possibility that the poverty "traits" Lewis listed are autonomous and meaningful as concepts in themselves - hence not determined by the culture in which they are embedded; (c) a faulty view of the relationship between trait and structure, particularly Lewis' view of poverty culture economic traits as distinct from the institutions of the larger society. Leeds noted also that structural interpretations were not recognized by Lewis as feasible alternatives to the cultural interpretations he offered for many phenomena. The major methodological concern about Lewis' work was his reliance on the case study approach. Finally, the ethical-civic issue was the potentially damaging effect on the poor themselves of an essentially deterministic view of poverty existence to which Lewis gave scientific credibility.

*This research was supported by Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Project H-2906, which contributed to Project NC-90, Cooperative State Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Direct correspondence to Nancy G. Kutner.

"•Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, U.S.A.

*** Department of Biometry and Statistics, Emory University, Atlanta, G A 30322. U.S.A.

Vol. XVIII, No.3 (Autumn 1987)



464 Journal of Comparative Family Studies

In spite of these issues, Winter (1971:18) concluded that "the final status of Lewis' hypothesized list and a more definitive description of the lifeways of the poor await further research." Several studies have focussed on ethnic comparisons of alleged poverty characteristics. Irelan et al. (1969) compared economically disadvantaged black, Hispanic and white respondents' support for three poverty- related value-orientations: precedence given to family of orientation over family of procreation, value placed on child autonomy, and holding parents responsible for their children's behaviour. In that study, conducted in California, the majority of black respondents lived in rural areas. Grinstead and Scholtz (1976) explored "attitudinal effects of poverty" related to employment and occupational mobility among blacks and whites in a rural Arkansas community. Bartz and LeVine (1978) compared childrearing attitudes of black, Hispanic, and white lower working-class parents in a Midwestern urban neighbourhood. All of these investigators found significant ethnic variation in respondents' value-orientations.

The possibility of residence differences as a source of variation in prevalence of poverty characteristics has received little research attention. However, it is likely that "the rural environment is sufficiently different from the urban environment - both in physical and social-psychological terms - to impose significant effects on certain aspects of family life" (Coward and Smith, 1981:2) Brown (1981), surveying changes in American society that have been reflected in the family, noted that age at marriage has increased, fertility has decreased, household size has diminished, the divorce rate has increased, and the labor force participation of women has increased. However, people living in rural areas continue to marry earlier than their urban counterparts, to have more children, and to live in larger household. In addition, a smaller proportion of rural marriages ends in divorce, and labor force participation continues to be lower among rural women. Finally, despite a general liberalization in societal attitudes toward moral issues associated with marriage and the family, the outlook of rural residents continues to be more "moralistic" than that of urban residents.

We focus in this paper on selected structural characteristics of the family and on selected value-orientations regarding childrearing using measures judged to be relevant to alleged poverty traits identified by Oscar Lewis. Data are examined for black, Hispanic, and white families, and within each of these ethnic categories, we compare metropolitan and nonmetropoli tan residents.

METHOD

Sample Our data were supplied by 473 female homemakers who were interviewed for

a study of, patterns of living in disadvantaged families that was carried out in thirteen different states in the U.S. (Technical Committee for NC-90, 1974). A common interview schedule was used in all participating states. In addition to basic demographic information, questions dealt with family resource procurement and use, family social structure and social participation, and the homemaker's value- orientations with regard to childrearing, education, and employment. The homemaker's value-orientations represent individual level data. Homemakers'



Ethnie and Residence Differences Among Poor Families 465

attitudes are likely to impact the family through their influence on children's socialization.

A two-stage sampling procedure was used. In metropolitan areas, poverty tracts were sampled, and in nonmetropolitan areas, low-income counties or other civil subdivisions were sampled. Within these areas, households were sampled, and families residing in these households were eligible for the study if there was at least one child under the age of 18 currently living in the home and if there was a female under the age of 65 who was the person "responsible for running the household." The female homemaker was the interviewee and provided information about the family unit. Interviews were conducted with homemakers by trained female interviewers whose ethnic background was the same as that of the respondents.

Although all the families included in the sample resided in areas defined as poverty areas according to census characteristics, not all families living in these areas had poverty-level incomes. The family units discussed in this paper had a total family income that was below the government-designated poverty threshold for a family of that composition and place of residence as of 1970. For example, the poverty threshold for a nonfarm family of five living in the North Central United States, composed of a mother aged 32, a son aged 15, a son aged 12, a son aged 4, and a daughter aged 8 - all of whom resided in the home all twelve months of the year - was $4497. The number of families with poverty-level incomes in the six ethnic/residence groups compared in this paper was as follows: metropolitan black - 135, nonmetropolitan black - 97, metropolitan Hispanic - 17, nonmetropolitan Hispanic - 114, metropolitan white - 53, and nonmetropolitan white - 57. 1 See Kutner (1975) for additional details about the sampling procedures of the larger study.

Variables and Measures Our analysis considers the following characteristics that Oscar Lewis attributed

to impoverished families: female- tír mother-centered, nuclear structure, rarely achieved family solidarity, absence of childhood as a specially prolonged and protected stage in the life cycle, and strong predisposition to authoritarianism.2 The specific indicators used to investigate these characteristics are shown in Table I.

Analysis The frequency (percentage) with which poor families in each ethnic/residence

group demonstrated each poverty trait indicator is reported in Tables Ha and Ilia. Because the data are frequencies, categorical data analysis techniques (log linear models, BMDP4F) were used to examine each poverty trait indicator (Dixon, 1985;

'Black families resided in Houston, Texas, and rural East Texas; Hispanic families resided in East Chicago, Illinois, and migrant labor camps in the vicinity of Davis, California; and white families resided in Superior. Wisconsin, and rural north central Vermont. 2Other characteristics associated with poor families according to Lewis (1968) were early initiation into sex, free unions or consensual marriages, relatively high incidence of the abandonment of wives and children, lack of privacy, and competition for limited goods and maternal affection. Lewis' writings over the period 1961-1966 also mentioned wife beating and frequent resort to violence in training children.



466 Journal of Comparative Family Studies Table I ALLEGED POVERTY TRAITS AND RELATED INDICATORS

Poverty Traits Indicators Female- or mother- centered families Homemaker identified self as family head3 Nuclear structure Family unit consisted of husband, wife and

children ; no additional relatives lived with family3

Family solidarity: an ideal rarely Medium or low family cohesiveness scoreb achieved Absence of childhood as a specially (1) Agreement that "if the family needs more prolonged and protected stage in the money it is all right for a child to quit school life cycle and help out for a while"

(2) Children currently employed Strong predisposition to authoritarianism Strong agreement that:

(1) "Respect for parents is the most important thing kids should learn*'

(2) "Most kids should be toilet trained by 15 months of age"

(3) "A child should be taken away from the breast or bottle as soon as possible"

(4) "Most kids should be spanked more often" (5) "The main goal of a parent is to see that the

kids stay out of trouble"

3As Leeds (1971) noted, it is unclear just what Lewis meant by "trend toward female- or mother- centered families" and by " predominance of the nuclear family." Most of the families in which the homemaker identified herself as family head did not contain a husband/father and therefore were not nuclear in structure.

bLewis argued that although there may be much verbal emphasis on the importance of family solidarity among poor families, in actuality this is an ideal that is rarely achieved. A family cohesiveness score was derived from responses to the items "How often do you go places together as a family?" and "How often do family members work around the home together?" (Technical Committee for NC-90, 1974:57-58). Families with medium and low scores engaged in these activities "sometimes" "seldom " or "never."

Fienberg, 1985). The dependent variable in each analysis was the presence or absence of the trait, and ethnicity and residence were treated as independent variables. Interactions (associations) among variables were assessed using the .05

significance level. The purpose of each analysis was to obtain a description of the

relationships between the factors by forming a log linear model for the data and

by testing and ordering the importance of the interactions between the factors. The

program utilized tests the appropriateness of models by the likelihood ratio X2 and

by the usual X2 goodness-of-fit. The goal is to find a parsimonious model which

provides an adequate fit of the data. Results of the log linear model analyses are summarized in Tables lib and Illb.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The families comprising the six ethnic/residence groups compared in this paper

were not "remarkably similar" in their structure nor in homemakers' value-



Ethnie and Residence Differences Among Poor Families 467

orientation. Place of residence, as well as ethnicity, contributed to the differences we found.

Table IIa indicates that the structural characteristics of black families and Hispanic. families were significantly different. Black families were predominantly both female-headed and nonnuclear. Although this was more true of the black families residing in Houston than of those living in nonmetropolitan East Texas, the same pattern was evident. This similarity may reflect a shared regional influence, since both groups lived in Texas, as well as an ethnic pattern.

In contrast to black families, very few of the Hispanic families were either female-headed or nonnuclear. This reflects a shared ethnic influence because these families' place of residence was markedly different - metropolitan Chicago in one case, and migrant labor camps in California in the second case.

Within all three ethnic categories, the direction of residence differences was consistent. This residence difference was much larger in the case of white families than for the other two ethnic categories, however. A regional difference may have contributed to this effect; the metropolitan white families we studied were located in the Midwest, while the nonmetropolitan families were located in the Northeast.

As indicated by Table Ilia, our data for black families and Hispanic families were similar in regard to expression of family solidarity and the homemakeťs

Table II STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF POOR FAMILIES, BY ETHNICITY AND RESIDENCE

IIa. Frequency Comparison Black Hispanic White

Metro Nonmetro Metro Nonmetro Metro Nonmetro n/N (%) n/N (%) n/N (%) n/N (%) n/N (%) n/N (%)

Female or mother- centred 105/135(77.8) 54/97(55.7) 3/17(17.6) 2/114(1.8) 32/53(60.4) 3/57(5.3)

Nuclear structure 24/135(17.8) 15/97(28.9) 12/17(70.6) 102/114(89.5) 20/53(37.7) 50/57(87.7)

lib. Results of Log Linear Model Fitting Interactions ___

Presen е/ Trait/ Absence Trait/ Trait/ Ethnicity/ Ethnicity/ of Trait Ethnicity Residence Ethnicity Residence Residence Residence

Female-or mother- centered *

Nuclear structure * * * * * *

""indicates effects (associations) in the log linear model which are statistically significant (p < .05)



468 Journal of Comparative Family Studies

agreement that it is all right for a child to quit school if the family needs money. While homemakers were not as likely as black and Hispanic homemakers to report low family solidarity or to say that it was all right for a child to quit school if the family needed money. Low family solidarity characterized all three ethnic groups but was more characteristic of families living in metropolitan areas. Homemakers in all ethnic groups were reluctant to agree that it is all right for a child to quit school, but this response was more characteristic of nonmetropolitan residents. Children's employment was rare in all ethnic/residence groups.

Homemakers in black families and Hispanic families were more similar in their expression of authoritarian attitudes toward childrearing than either group was to homemakers in white families. The only exception to this pattern was Hispanic homemakers' reluctance to endorse the value of frequent spanking to the same extent that black homemakers did. Similarly, Bartz and LeVine (1978) found that black parents and Hispanic parents were more likely than white parents to expect early walking, weaning, and toilet skills; Bartz and LeVine also found that black parents more strongly enforced expected behaviors in their children through techniques such as spanking than did either of the other two ethnic groups. In our data, there was a tendency for authoritarian childrearing ideology tobe stronger among nonmetropolitan respondents in the three ethnic groups.

Table III PARENT-CHILD INTERACTION AND CHILD-REARING ATTITUDES IN POOR FAMILIES, BY ETHNICITY AND RESIDENCE

Ilia. Frequency Comparison Black Hispanic White

Metro Nonmeiro Metro Nonmetro Metro Nonmetro n/N (%) n/N (%) n/N (%) n/N (%) n/N (%) n/N (%)

Rarely achieved family solidarity 116/135(86.3) 75/97(77.3) 15/17(87.5) 86/114(75.0) 35/53(66.0) 31/57(54.4)

Absence of childhood 1. O.K. for child to quit school 27/135(20.3) 31/97(32.0) 4/17(23.5) 43/114(37.8) 4/53(7.6) 8/57(14.0)

2. Children employed 6/135(4.2) 5/97(4.9) 0/17(0) 18/114(15.6) 2/53(3.6) 2/57(3.4)

Strong authoritarianism 1. Kids must learn respect for parents 126/135(93.3) 93/97(95.9) 16/17(94.1) 99/114(86.8) 35/53(66.0) 39/57(68.4) 2. Early toilet training 82/135(60.7) 69/97(71.1) 12/17(70.6) 83/114(72.6) 12/53(22.6) 18/57(31.6)

3. Early weaning 61/135(44.8) 61/97(62.9) 8/17(47.1) 65/114(57.1) 9/53(17.0) 17/57(29.8) 4. Frequent spanking 56/135(41.5) 51/97(52.6) 6/17(35.3) 26/114(23.0) 18/53(34.0) 19/57(33.3) 5. Parents must keep

kids out of trouble 87/135(64.7) 76/97(78.4) 9/17(52.9) 86/114(75.2) 19/53(35.8) 24/57(42.1)



Ethnie and Residence Differences Among Poor Families 469 IHb. Results of Log Linear Model Fitting

Interactions Presence/ Trait/ Absence Trait/ Trait/ Ethnicity/ Ethnicity/ of Trait Ethnicity Residence Ethnicity Residence Residence Residence

Rarely achieved family solidarit)' * * * * *

Absence of childhood 1. O.K. for child to quit school * * * * *

2. Children employed * * * * *

Strong authoritarianism 1. Kids must learn respect « * ♦ ♦ *

2. Early toilet training ♦ ♦ * * *

3. Early weaning * * * ♦ * * 4. Frequent

spanking * » ♦ ♦ * 5. Parents must

keep kids out of trouble * ♦ ♦ ♦ * ♦

•indicates effects (associations) in the log linear model which are statistically significant (p < .05)

Clearly, there is no consistent pattern across the six ethnic/residence groups compared in this paper in their expression of the poverty characteristics named by Oscar Lewis. Poor families in nonmetropolitan areas were less likely to be female- centered and nonnuclear than were their ethnic counterparts who lived in

metropolitan areas. Homemakers from poor nonmetropolitan families expressed more conservative childrearing attitudes and reported more frequent family interaction than did their metropolitan counterparts. Our data support the conclusion that "the poor cannot be viewed simply as a homogeneous group" (Grinstead and Scholtz, 1976:34). In addition to ethnic differences, which other researchers have also recognized, place of residence can have a significant mediating effect on family life (Coward and Smith, 1981).

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Ethnic and Residence Differences among poor Families