Early Childhood Poverty: Short and Long-Run Consequences Over the Lifespan

Abstract

Poor children begin school well behind their more affluent peers and the gaps persist over the school years. Low-income families experience higher levels of stress than more affluent families and these disparities may affect children’s development. Economic theory suggests that children from poor families lag behind their economically advantaged counterparts in part because their parents have less time and money to invest in them. Little of the existing literature has been able to estimate the impacts of low family income during the very earliest years of a child’s life – the time when children are developing rapidly and may be very sensitive to family and home conditions. Similarly few studies have been able to examine the consequences of poverty during childhood for outcomes measured in adulthood. This is an important omission in the literature not only because it limits understanding of the intergenerational reproduction of poverty but also because the goals of childhood anti-poverty policies are often characterized in terms of their impacts on children’s life chances.