Benefits Change Family Living Arrangements

Elderly Woman, Washington DC, 1942
Library of Congress: America from the Great Depression to World War II Black-and-White Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945

One effect of the new federal benefits was on the living arrangements of the elderly. Dora Costa studied the relationship between income, marital status, and living arrangements on elderly women. She found that older women were only half as likely as older men to be married. In earlier eras, those women would have been living with their children, but Costa noted a significant reduction in the percentage of elderly unmarried women who were living with their children in the 1940's, which she was able to attribute directly to the new source of income from OAA. (Costa, 1997) This new independence was good news in many ways, but it also meant that it was less likely that a family member would be present in the same house if those older women needed supervision or medical care in the future.

Mrs. Ella Patterson, 102, Chicago, IL, 1942
The oldest resident at the Ida B. Wells Housing Project. The picture on the wall is her family when she was a child. Library of Congress: America from the Great Depression to World War II Black-and-White Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945