本文檢視低收入家戶的貧窮歷程，其中老人單身家戶與女性單親家戶是我們特別關注的群體。儘管之前多數的貧窮研究注意到老人與女性單親家戶的貧窮問題，但往往受限於橫斷性資料而忽略貧窮本身為一長期動態的事實。分析結果顯示：單身老人旳貧窮歸因主要來自年紀老邁無法工作，其次為殘障或傷病。女性單親家戶則多數因為主要家計負擔者死亡而致貧。貧窮持續時間方面，低收入家戶的異質性使其處於貧窮狀態的時間殊異。相對而言，女性單親家戶的貧窮持續時間最短，而單身老人脫貧的機率非常低。多數家庭均依靠子女長大而脫貧，而戶內依賴人口和工作人口對於該家戶能否脫貧則具有關鍵性的影響。

　　　　　Based on a follow-up random sample of 800 households culled from a pool of more than 2,000 household panel data completed in Chia-yi County, Taiwan, during the period of 1988-1994, this paper examines the poverty spells of low-income households. Two groups are targeted for focused study, namely, single elderly households and single female-headed households The results of our analyses indicate that for single elderly households, the main cause of poverty was the inability to work due to aging, which was followed by disability, injury, and illness. In contrast, he predominant cause of poverty in single female-headed households was the death of the primary household wage earner. In terms of duration of poverty, we found somewhat disperse patterns due to the heterogeneity of low-income households. Single female-headed households show the shortest duration of poverty, while single elderly households tend to remain in poverty the longer than other groups, and moreove, have the lowest probability of overcoming poverty. Among factors that contribute towards falling into and the persistence of poverty, we found that the number of older children to be the single most decisive reason for escaping poverty, while inversely, having a large number of dependent children represented the main cause of falling into poverty. The paper also discussed in detail the implications of these results.