ABSTRACT
Political activism by various age-based and feminist advocacy organizations has been fueled by the growing literature on the feminization of poverty across women's lives. The writings of selected Black political economists have detailed the central way in which racial oppression informs the development of the US political economy. The criticisms and reconceptualizations that follow are offered with the hope that a more complex understanding of poverty in later life will generate more effective efforts to eliminate economic inequalities. Racial-ethnic women have not been overlooked in most writing on the feminization of poverty in later life. For several reasons the feminization of poverty argument is politically appealing to various age-based and feminist advocacy groups. A more complex understanding of old age poverty is needed by gerontology scholars and activists. Single-variable conceptualizations of political economic dynamics may serve short-term consciousness-raising functions for select categories of people.
