Child Poverty and Its Lasting Impact

A new paper by The Urban Institute examines four critical questions related to the lasting impact of child poverty.

  • What share of newborns is poor, and how often do these children remain poor?
  • What family characteristics relate most strongly to childhood poverty persistence?
  • What are the implications of present-day childhood poverty for adult outcomes?
  • How do other family characteristics and childhood experiences relate to adult outcomes?

Among the findings:

  • Over the past four decades, 16 percent of children were born to poor parents.
    • Minority children are less economically secure than white children; 40 percent of black newborns are poor, compared with 10 percent of white newborns.
    • Over the past four decades, nearly half (49 percent) of children born to poor parents were poor for at least half their childhoods, and there has been little improvement over time.
  • Black children are worse off, and the magnitude of their disadvantage has persisted over time.
  • Roughly one in every three poor white newborns is persistently poor, while two in every three poor black newborns are persistently poor.
  • Beyond poverty status at birth, parents’ educational attainment at the time of the child’s birth is a key factor related to childhood poverty persistence for both white and black children. Family employment status at the child’s birth also plays a role for black children.
  • Compared with people never poor as a child, those poor for half their childhoods are nearly 90 percent more likely to enter their 20s without completing high school and are four times more likely to have a teen premarital birth (controlling for race, parents’ education at birth, family characteristics, and other factors).
  • Children who are poor early in life—birth to age 2—are 30 percent less likely to complete high school than children who are first poor later in childhood (controlling for poverty duration and other factors). Timing of poverty is not related to teen premarital childbearing.
  • Children in families that move for negative reasons (e.g., housing unit coming down, being evicted, parents divorcing, saving money) are less likely to complete high school by age 20 than children that do not move or that move for neutral or positive reasons.

 

In the conclusion, the Institute notes:

Targeting vulnerable children at birth is vital, as children’s environment in the first years of life has been found to affect brain development, and poverty early in life is linked with lower educational achievement. For the current generation, the majority of whom are born in hospitals, children born to poor parents, particularly those with low-educated parents, should be connected with program services to help them avoid the poverty trap. home-visiting, parenting, and relationship counseling programs targeted at these families can help children by improving family functioning and the home environment. Also, opportunities arising from health reform should be used to connect new mothers, many of whom suffer from depression (vericker et al. 2010), with health insurance, so they can get help with both physical and emotional needs. If family stress filters down to children, these steps can improve longer term outcomes for these vulnerable children.

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/412659-Child-Poverty-and-Its-Lasting-Consequence-Paper.pdf

 

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