Enduring Influences of Childhood Poverty

Poverty is a common experience for children growing up in the United States. Although only about one in five children are in poverty each year, roughly one in three will spend at least one year living in a poor household. Child poverty is a significant concern to researchers and policymakers because early childhood poverty is linked to a multitude of worse outcomes, including reduced academic attainment, higher rates of non-marital child bearing, and a greater likelihood of health problems. Moreover, childhood poverty, especially when it is deep and persistent, increases the chances that an individual will be poor as an adult, thereby giving rise to the intergenerational transmission of economic disadvantage. In this chapter the authors review research on the dynamics of child poverty and the influences of poverty on development during childhood and early adulthood in the United States. They begin by describing trends in child poverty. Next, they present three dominant frameworks for understanding the influences of poverty on families and discuss challenges faced by researchers interested in measuring causal effects. Then they review studies that estimate childhood poverty’s influence on development in three domains: educational attainment and achievement, behavior, and physical health. They conclude by discussing policies that show promise in attenuating the links between childhood poverty and development across the life course. Enduring Influences of Childhood Poverty Poverty is a common experience for children growing up in the United States. Although only about one in five children are in poverty each year, roughly one in three will spend at least one year living in a poor household. Child poverty is a significant concern to researchers and policy makers because early childhood poverty is linked to a multitude of worse outcomes, including reduced academic attainment, higher rates of non-marital child bearing, and a greater likelihood of health problems. Moreover, childhood poverty, especially when it is deep and persistent, increases the chances that an individual will be poor as an adult, thereby giving rise to the intergenerational transmission of economic disadvantage (Jäntti, this volume). In this chapter we review research on the dynamics of child poverty and the influences of poverty on development during childhood and early adulthood in the United States. We begin by describing trends in child poverty. Next, we present three dominant frameworks for understanding the influences of poverty on families and discuss challenges faced by researchers interested in measuring causal effects. Then, we review studies that estimate childhood poverty’s influence on development in three domains: educational attainment and achievement, behavior, and physical health. We conclude by discussing policies that show promise in attenuating the links between childhood poverty and development across the life course. CHILD POVERTY DYNAMICS In the U.S., child poverty rates are higher than rates for the adult and elderly populations (Wallace and Meyer, this volume). In 2006, nearly 17.4 percent of children lived in families with incomes below the official poverty threshold compared with only 10.8 percent of adults. Another 22 percent of children lived in families with incomes less than 200 percent of the poverty threshold. Although it is difficult to make international comparisons, research suggests that U.S. has one of the highest rates of child poverty among western industrialized nations (Bradbury and Jäntti, 2001).