Children and Poverty

The Implications of Poverty on the World’s Children

Dr. Aubrey H. Fine

Group Discussion

• You have been asked to be a delegate to The President’s Council on Alleviating Poverty in America. As a member you will be responsible to help set the agenda for reform.

• What will be the 5 major areas of effort ?• What supports do you feel the governments should

provide for the poor and near poor?• What do you believe should be the private sectors

responsibility in helping reduce poverty in our communities?

Definition of Poverty

• The state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions • Poverty can be used as a broad term covering a range of conditions such as:

• poor living situations• crowdedness• few material resources• depleted and dangerous neighborhoods

Poverty

• Inadequate schools• Limited access to health care, child

care and other community services and resources

• Lack of stimulation at home• Parental psychological distress• Harsh and restrictive parenting• Low levels of social support

Statistics

• USA (1999)

• 14 million (19.8 of those under 18) children living in poverty

• More than 5 million of them are under 6 years of age

• The young children poverty rate is significantly higher than in other Western industrialized nations

Statistics – Con’t• Around the World (1999)

– About 700 million children live below the absolute poverty level– 12 million children under the age of 5 die each year, due to a variety of poor living conditions (an estimate of 33,000 per day)– 200 million children under the age of 5 are undernourished

Implications of Poverty on…

• Child Rearing– Harsh and restrictive parenting

due to• psychological distress caused by

– stress– anxiety

• Physical, sexual, verbal, and psychological child abuse is a frequent occurrence due to psychological distress

Implications of Poverty on…

• Child Development– Impaired cognitive development

• Difficulty with school poverty

• Low productivity

– Problems in socio-emotional adjustment• Behavior Problems

– Poor peer relations– Conduct disorder– Depression– Delinquency

Implications of Poverty on…• Health Well-Being & Health Care

• More than 50% of children below the poverty line do not receive nor have access to health care services

• Lack of adequate health care services

• Poor children are significantly less healthy than non-poor children

• Serious or chronic health conditions

• Problems with obesity

• Physical growth abnormal due to poor nutrition

Effects of Long Term Poverty on Physical Health of Children in the National Longitudinal

Survey of Youth

• Discussion– Poverty was substantially associated with

higher odds of low birth weight-for- height– Birth weight was significantly and inversely

correlated with the risk of both height for age & low weight for age among 5 to 7 year old children

– Poverty affected stunting in comparison to first cousins, at least in the models that excluded controls for maternal height and weight

– Poverty inhibits motor & social development in the first three years of life.

Implications of Poverty on…

• Welfare– Positives

• Cash for necessities

• Housing

• Food stamps

• Health Care• Social Services

– “Head Start” programs & child care programs

Implications of Poverty on…

• Welfare– Negatives

• Decline of adequate – Cash sums for necessities– Housing– Food Stamps– Health Care– Social Services

• The stigma of welfare– Causes poor self-esteem

• Keeping the Welfare Cycle Alive…– Future dependency on welfare in

adulthood

Poverty Trends• Measuring Income Poverty

– Poverty threshold take household size into account and are adjusted each year for cost of living using consumer price index– Families whose income are above the threshold are considered “not poor” & those under are classified “poor” for any given year.– Children from families whose yearly income place them just above the poverty threshold are considered as “near poor”– 2 in every 5 children live in poor or near poor families.

Poverty Trends – Con’t

• Rates of Poverty for Children– After 1989, the rate of poverty rose overall, the

proportion of children in poverty climbed more rapidly.

– One of the important causes is the increase in the number of single parents , both those who have children outside of marriage & those who experience a divorce.

– Hernandez (1993) has estimated that 28% of children whose families were poor following a marital separation were poor their parents were separated. If fathers rejoined the family, about 40% of children would move from below to above the poverty line.

Poverty Trends – Con’t• Persistent Poverty

• Both single year and multiple year estimates of poverty indicate that the black and Hispanic children are much more likely to be poor, & for a longer periods of time than white are.

• In 1980, a Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), a nationally representative sample of families, black children were more likely to be in any given year, and were more likely to be poor for multiple years.

• The differences account for over one half of the black-white differences in the IQ scores.

Children in Families in Communities• The child as an individual • Garmezy & Rutter 1983; Werner & Smith 1982

in their study explained why children are likely to show lower well being in the face of certain biological & environmental conditions.

Biological Environmental

Physical health - Illness at birth- Low birth weight- Physical disability

Family conditions- Parental characteristics- Neighborhood - School conditions

Three Poverty Trends• Consequences of Poverty during childhood

• Prenatal –Infancy Period

• Prenatal outcomes

• Timely receipt of prenatal care

• Smoking during pregnancy

• Low birth weight

• Prenatal complications

Three Poverty Trends

• Consequences of Poverty during Childhood– Early childhood years

• A few studies have examined income poverty’s association with intelligence test scores and behavior problem scores when children are under 5 years of age (Duncan, Brooks-Gunn and Klebanov 1994)

• Well-baby health care continues to lag for poor young children. Links with income poverty are primarily found among poor or near poor children without health insurance ( Cunningham and Hahn 1994)

Three Poverty Trends – Con’t• Consequences of Poverty during childhood

• Late childhood years

• Measures of child well being include:

• School achievement test scores

• Behavior problems as reported by teachers and parents

• Grade failure

• Learning and attention problems

• Current work added the following domains:

• Children’s reports of self disengagement

• Of self-efficiency and self-esteem

• Of depressive and aggressive behavior

(Harter 1990 & others)

Three Poverty Trends Consequences of Poverty during

childhood

• Adolescent years

• Early adolescent years

• Outcomes include:

• School engagement

• Peer relationships

• Juvenile delinquency

• Self-esteem

• Grades in school

Three Poverty Trends

• Consequences of Poverty in childhood– Late adolescent periods

• Pregnancy

• Childbirth

• School drop out rate and

• High school graduation

• Many studies examined effects of income on teenage childbearing in– girls and on high school dropout or completion for

boys and girls (Brooks-Gunn, Guo, & Furstenberg 1993)

Three Poverty Trends• Consequences of Poverty during Childhood

• Persistence & Timing of Poverty

• Developmental theory postulates that the timing of events is critical to an understanding of their effects on children. Various events or environmental conditions might influence the cognitive and social skills the child has acquired as well as the contexts in which they reside

Relative Poverty

Relative Poverty and Family IncomeChildren experienced inequality in their

family incomes after 1969 as increases occurred in the proportions both at the top and bottom of the income distribution. The proportion living in the middle class comfort or near poor frugality declined from 52% in 1969 to 47% in 1993

Relative Poverty by age, family situation and race

Children in two parent families experience much lower relative poverty rates than children in mother-only families, while black children have been much more likely than white children to be poor. (Hernandez 1993)

Three Poverty Trends

• Income, Education and Family Structure– Most recent literature on parents’ education has

mainly focused on mothers education because many children live in single mother households, making fathers education less salient

– Research has demonstrated that being reared in single –parent family is associated with less positive child and youth outcomes than being reared in two parent families (Mclanahan and Sandefur 1994)

Source of Change in Relative Property

• The rise in Father’s Non-Farm work

• The decline of large families

• The rise in educational attainment

Parent Absence or Poverty: Which Matters More?

• Does family structure matter?– There are 6 domains indicating child well-being:

• IQ scores: It includes IQ tests and cognitive ability• Educational attainment: Grade retention, GPA, high school

graduation, college attendance and college graduation.• Behavioral problems: school behavior problems

hyperactivity and fighting.• Psychological problems: externalizing behavior (acting),

internalizing behavior (anxiety & depression) and low self-esteem.

• Jobs and income: hourly wages, work experience, occupational status & poverty status

• Health: includes measures of wasting & stunting, chronic health and early mortality

Parent Absence or Poverty: Which matters more? …

• Does type of family type structure matter?

• Families headed by divorced parents were most consistent in terms of their effects on children.

• 8 studies looked at combined effects of living with a divorced or never married mothers . 7 show that growing in both conditions reduces children’s well-being. Peters & Mullis was the only one that found single parenthood was not related to test scores.

• Step families – over half of the studies found that remarriage reduced child’s well-being.

Parent Absence or Poverty: Which matters more? Con’t…

Which matters more: income or family structure?

Findings suggest the net effects of poverty on cognitive ability and school achievement are equal to or larger than the net effects of family disruption. In contrast, for 3 other outcomes – behavioral problems, psychological problems and health – the findings suggest that parent absence is more important than income.

Parents Income and children’s Outcomes

• Investment theory– The relationship between parent’s and

children ‘s economic success is the result of endowments that parents pass on their children combined with what parents invest in their children (Becker 1991; Becker & Tomes1986)

– Endowments include both biological traits and cultural traits

– The theory holds that children raise din affluent families succeed more often than those raised in poor families because rich parents both pass on superior endowments and can invest more in their children.

Parents Income and children’s Outcomes

• Good Parent theory– This theory on the contrary to the

investment theory holds that low income hurts children because it decreases the quality of parents’ non-monetary investments such as their interactions with their children.

– 2 versions of the theory• Parental Stress Version• Role – Model Version

Parents Income and children’s Outcomes

• Parental stress version:

• Holds that poverty is stressful and that stress diminishes parents ability to be supportive, consistent, & involved with their children. (McLoyd 1990). Poor parenting in turn, hurts the social & emotional development of children, which limits their educational & social opportunities.

• This model implies that parents’ relative economic standing, as well as their absolute level of economic resources , may be important to children’s well – being.

Parents Income and children’s Outcomes

• Role Model Version:– It holds that because of their position at the bottom of the social hierarchy, low income parents develop values, norms & behaviors that case them to be ‘bad’ role models to their children.– A hypothesis holds that among families living in a “culture of poverty,” values and behavior will not change at all in response to income changes.

Trends in Parents Income

• Household Income

• Income Inequality

• Annual Versus Permanent Income

Trends in children’s OutcomesThe relationship between trends in parents income and trends in 7 outcomes among teenagers & young adults:

• Dropping Out of High School

• Educational Attainment

• Teenage Childbearing

• Single Motherhood

• Men’s Wages

• Hours Worked

Effects of Long Term Poverty on Physical Health of Children in the National Longitudinal Survey of

Youth• Data and Sample- interviews from a cohort of approximately 6,000 women

aged 14 to 21 in 1979 (at base line)- Information from the series of biennial Child Supplements

(CS) about the children and women in the sample- More than 90% of the women eligible to be interviewed

remained in the study as of 1988 ( Baker et al. 1993)- Measures Other VariablesChild Health SiblingsAge and Assessment year Mother’s race/ethnicityIncome Sex & birth weightDuration and timing of Poverty Highest grade by the

motherFamily Structure Mothers age at first birth

Scores on Armed Forces Qualification

Effects of Long Term Poverty on Physical Health of Children in the National Longitudinal

Survey of Youth

• Discussion– Poverty was substantially associated with

higher odds of low birth weight-for- height– Birth weight was significantly and inversely

correlated with the risk of both height for age & low weight for age among 5 to 7 year old children

– Poverty affected stunting in comparison to first cousins, at least in the models that excluded controls for maternal height and weight

– Poverty inhibits motor & social development in the first three years of life.