The persistence of poverty across generations: A view from two British cohorts

Key takeaways

(file:///C:\Users\scott\Zotero\storage\7I8N22GR\Gibbons_Blanden_2006_The%20persistence%20of%20poverty%20across%20generations.pdf)

Bibliography: Gibbons, S., Blanden, J., 2006. The persistence of poverty across generations: A view from two British cohorts. The Policy Press on behalf of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Authors:: S Gibbons, J Blanden

Collections:: UCL BCS Dump

First-page: 8

Abstract

This report examines the magnitude of the link between child poverty and poverty later in adult life using members of two British cohorts, one group in their teens in the 1970s and the other in their teens in the 1980s. The core data we use is on income and other characteristics at age 16 for both cohorts, as well as information on later income and characteristics at age 33 for the first cohort and age 30 for the second cohort. We are also able to use information on income at age 42 for the older group.

Citations

content: "@gibbonsPersistencePovertyGenerations2006" -file:@gibbonsPersistencePovertyGenerations2006

Reading notes

Imported on 2024-05-07 21:34

⭐ Important

& Our results find evidence of a significant persistence of poverty from teenhood to the early thirties. This persistence is measured by the odds ratio. This is obtained by comparing the chances (or ‘odds’) of being poor if one’s parents are poor with the chances of being poor if they are not. Of those who were teenagers in the 1970s: • For those whose families were poor when they were 16, 19% of those with poor parents are poor and 81% are not. Individuals are four times more likely to be non-poor than poor in their early thirties. • For those with parents who are not poor, 90% are not poor in later life while 10% are poor. In this case, individuals are nine times more likely to be non-poor than poor if their parents were non-poor. (p. 8)
& For teenagers growing up in the 1970s, teenage poverty doubled the odds of being poor adults. Being poor as a teenager in the 1970s also doubled the odds of being poor in early middle age (age 42) by 2000. For this group, teenage poverty is therefore as strongly related to middle age poverty as it was to poverty in earlier adulthood. (p. 9)