Sociology 498: Homelessness

Gender and Homelessness

Comparing Rossi's Chicago homeless with national homeless samples

Martha Burt and Barbara Cohen's 1987 national survey of urban homelessness found the proportion male close to but even higher than what Rossi found for Chicago. The similarity of the results increases our confidence in the usefulness of the Chicago survey.

Burt's 1996 national results show very little change in the concentration of men among the urban homeless. However her 1996 expansion of homeless surveys to suburban and rural areas (and to a broader sample of homeless service providers in central cities) shows that urban samples are more gender skewed than national samples. Her suburban homeless were only 55% male compared to the 71% male in the full urban sample. The rural homeless are closer to the urban proportions: 68% male. So, a better estimate for the entire nation's homeless is only 68% male -- still gender skewed, but not quite as skewed as Rossi's and other early survey suggested.
 

Other charts on gender and homelessness:

• To data on the Chicago non-homeless.
• To U.S. data on the formerly homeless.
• To U.S. data on length and type of homelessness.