The lives of women have changed dramatically over the past three decades. Women are no longer the stay-at-home mothers of the 1950s sitcom “The Donna Reed Show” or even the popular 1970s sitcom “The Brady Bunch.” Today, women are more like Clair Huxtable of “The Cosby Show”—college-educated with professional jobs and sharing in the family’s financial decision-making.

“Our families don’t look like the ‘60s anymore,” says Susan W. Sweetser, who heads the Women’s Markets department at MassMutual Financial Group, a Fortune 100 company. “Women really are the drivers in their households.”

According to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 60 percent of women are in the labor force today compared with only 43 percent in 1970. In fact, half of all management and professional positions are held by women, and they make up 38 percent of all entrepreneurs.

But women are still more likely than men to live in poverty despite women’s advancement in the labor force and their growing financial power. Black and Hispanic women are twice as likely to live in poverty as their White counterparts. Why? Read the full story