ORIGINAL PAPER Marrying, Unmarrying, and Poverty Dynamics among Mothers with Children Living at Home Teresa A. Mauldin Æ Yoko Mimura Published online: 23 August 2007 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007 Abstract Using the two-way transitions model and a sample of mothers with children living at home who experienced poverty, we examined how the changes in mothers’ marital status relate to the odds of exiting and reentering poverty. The data came from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort (1979–1998). This study found an asymmetric association between poverty dynamics and becoming unmarried. Becoming unmarried was associated with increased odds of both getting out of poverty and reentering poverty, where the magnitude of the latter is greater than that of the former, when family background, family characteristics, and human capital and employment factors are controlled. Keywords Marital status  Mothers  Poverty  Poverty dynamics  Two-way transition model Introduction Since the passage and implementation of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), there has been growing emphasis on the importance of marriage in reducing poverty. Reauthorization of the PRWORA focused on providing programs that would promote and maintain marriages and increase father involvement (National Conference of State Legislatures 2004; Parke 2004; U.S. Depart- ment of Heath and Human Services 2006; Wetzstein 2003). T. A. Mauldin  Y. Mimura (&) Department of Housing and Consumer Economics, University of Georgia, Dawson Hall, Athens, GA 30602-2622, USA e-mail: ymimura@fcs.uga.edu T. A. Mauldin e-mail: tmauldin@fcs.uga.edu 123 J Fam Econ Iss (2007) 28:566–582 DOI 10.1007/s10834-007-9076-5