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Consequences of growing up poor
Pergamon
Children andYouth Services Review, Vol. 21, Nos. 9110, pp. 901-903, 1999 Copyright 8 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0190-7409/99/S-see front matter
PI1 SO190-7409(99)00059-6
Book Review Consequences of Growing Up Poor By Greg J. Duncan & Jeanne Brooks-Gunn (Eds.) New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997. 660 pp. $49.95 cloth.
The United States has the dubious distinction, as the wealthiest nation in the world, of having a higher poverty rate than most other Western industrialized countries (Smeeding & Rainwater, 1995). Poverty in America disproportionately affects children: in 1994, although children under I8 years old represented approximately 25 percent of the overall population in the United States, they accounted for 40 percent of those living in poverty. Additionally, child poverty rates have increased substantially over the last two decades, from a low of 14 percent in 1973, to 2 1 percent in 1995. This percentage translates to approximately 15 million children under 18 years old and 6 million children under 6 years of age living in poverty (National Center for Children in Poverty, 1996). A large body of research examines the detrimental effects of poverty on children’s development. However, serious gaps remain in the conceptualization of the relationship between family income and development, apart from other factors associated with poverty, as well as the specific mechanisms through which poverty influences children. This leaves policymakers and the public with a rather undifferentiated view of ways to reduce the damaging influence of poverty on children. Consequences of Growing Up Poor draws together research from the fields of psychology, sociology, and economics to provide a significant specification of the complex interplay of factors involved in the link -between child poverty and child and family outcomes. The goals of the book are threefold: to explore the consequences of poverty for children and youth, to understand whether links between income deprivation and children’s well-being are due to income or to other related family conditions, and to examine the pathways through which in-
901
902
Book Reviews
come influences children’s outcomes. The authors demonstrate, among many findings, that income has large effects on children’s cognitive ability and achievement, but not on other developmental areas; that increasing the family income of poor or near poor children has a greater impact than increasing the incomes of middle class or affluent children; that family income is usually a stronger predictor of ability and achievement than measures of parental schooling or family structure; and finally, that income appears to matter for the cognitive development of preschoolers because of its association with the provision of a richer learning environment. Importantly, a major strength of the analyses in this book is the consideration by all authors of the importance of the persistence, or length of time in poverty, the timing of poverty in children’s lives, and the depth of poverty, or how far below the poverty line family income falls. The book is divided into three sections. Chapters l-4 provide an overview and background to the problem of child poverty by covering topics such as historical trends in poverty rates, the effects of family structure on children’s well-being, and considerations of changes in standards of living. The body of the book, chapters 5-17, is a series of analyses of data from many child development studies. Each of the authors addresses four questions: Does income matter? When does income matter? For what outcomes does income matter? And finally, why does income matter? The majority of the studies use data from panel studies such as the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), or the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP), to examine a wide array of child outcomes using longitudinal measures of family income. The final chapter of the book summarizes the findings of the studies from chapters 5-l 7, draws overall conclusions about the effects of family income on children’s well-being, and discusses policy implications based on the findings. A unique aspect of this book is that all authors of chapters 5-17 performed replication analyses on the same measures of family income, family structure, and maternal education. The editors write, “These analyses provide a set of baseline associations between family income and children’s outcomes that reveal at what points in child- and adulthood and for what developmental domains the poverty-outcome associations are the strongest” (p. 15). In this way the book provides a framework for understanding the consequences of poverty based on findings from many distinct studies.
903
Book Reviews
The analyses in chapters 5-l 7 are arranged by their focus on particular developmental stages from infancy through young adulthood. While the studies of the impact of poverty on adolescence and later life outcomes provide important, timely analyses, the editors devote considerably more attention to this topic than to the effects on younger children. The consequence of family poverty during infancy and the preschool years is one of the least understood areas in the literature. Given one of the main findings of the book, that “family economic conditions in early and middle childhood appear to be far more important for shaping ability and achievement than they do during adolescence” (p. 597), it would have been useful to include more studies focusing specifically on early childhood. Taken together, the studies in Consequences of Growing Up Poor contribute substantially to a growing knowledge of the effects of poverty on children. In the current era of welfare reform, studies with empirically based findings that have clear policy implications are most likely to have a meaningful impact on children’s future well-being. Implications for policy were considered by the editors to be a secondary focus of the book, and indeed, disappointingly few pages are devoted explicitly to that purpose. However, the findings in this volume can at least be called on by policymakers and advocates for children to select as their highest priority, programs and policies intended to reduce or mitigate the effects of child poverty for the youngest children. This book’s well-written, clear presentation makes it recommended reading for researchers in social welfare or child development, as well as for those working directly with poor children and their families. Karie A4. Frasch University of California at Berkeley References National Center for Children in Poverty. (1996). Young children in poverty. New York: School of Public Health, Columbia University. Smeeding, T., & Rainwater, L. (1995). Cross-national trends in income poverty and dependence: The evidence for young adults in the eighties. In K. McFate (Ed.). Poverty, inequality, and thefuture of social policy. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Children andYouth Services Review, Vol. 21, Nos. 9110, pp. 901-903, 1999 Copyright 8 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0190-7409/99/S-see front matter
PI1 SO190-7409(99)00059-6
Book Review Consequences of Growing Up Poor By Greg J. Duncan & Jeanne Brooks-Gunn (Eds.) New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997. 660 pp. $49.95 cloth.
The United States has the dubious distinction, as the wealthiest nation in the world, of having a higher poverty rate than most other Western industrialized countries (Smeeding & Rainwater, 1995). Poverty in America disproportionately affects children: in 1994, although children under I8 years old represented approximately 25 percent of the overall population in the United States, they accounted for 40 percent of those living in poverty. Additionally, child poverty rates have increased substantially over the last two decades, from a low of 14 percent in 1973, to 2 1 percent in 1995. This percentage translates to approximately 15 million children under 18 years old and 6 million children under 6 years of age living in poverty (National Center for Children in Poverty, 1996). A large body of research examines the detrimental effects of poverty on children’s development. However, serious gaps remain in the conceptualization of the relationship between family income and development, apart from other factors associated with poverty, as well as the specific mechanisms through which poverty influences children. This leaves policymakers and the public with a rather undifferentiated view of ways to reduce the damaging influence of poverty on children. Consequences of Growing Up Poor draws together research from the fields of psychology, sociology, and economics to provide a significant specification of the complex interplay of factors involved in the link -between child poverty and child and family outcomes. The goals of the book are threefold: to explore the consequences of poverty for children and youth, to understand whether links between income deprivation and children’s well-being are due to income or to other related family conditions, and to examine the pathways through which in-
901
902
Book Reviews
come influences children’s outcomes. The authors demonstrate, among many findings, that income has large effects on children’s cognitive ability and achievement, but not on other developmental areas; that increasing the family income of poor or near poor children has a greater impact than increasing the incomes of middle class or affluent children; that family income is usually a stronger predictor of ability and achievement than measures of parental schooling or family structure; and finally, that income appears to matter for the cognitive development of preschoolers because of its association with the provision of a richer learning environment. Importantly, a major strength of the analyses in this book is the consideration by all authors of the importance of the persistence, or length of time in poverty, the timing of poverty in children’s lives, and the depth of poverty, or how far below the poverty line family income falls. The book is divided into three sections. Chapters l-4 provide an overview and background to the problem of child poverty by covering topics such as historical trends in poverty rates, the effects of family structure on children’s well-being, and considerations of changes in standards of living. The body of the book, chapters 5-17, is a series of analyses of data from many child development studies. Each of the authors addresses four questions: Does income matter? When does income matter? For what outcomes does income matter? And finally, why does income matter? The majority of the studies use data from panel studies such as the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), or the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP), to examine a wide array of child outcomes using longitudinal measures of family income. The final chapter of the book summarizes the findings of the studies from chapters 5-l 7, draws overall conclusions about the effects of family income on children’s well-being, and discusses policy implications based on the findings. A unique aspect of this book is that all authors of chapters 5-17 performed replication analyses on the same measures of family income, family structure, and maternal education. The editors write, “These analyses provide a set of baseline associations between family income and children’s outcomes that reveal at what points in child- and adulthood and for what developmental domains the poverty-outcome associations are the strongest” (p. 15). In this way the book provides a framework for understanding the consequences of poverty based on findings from many distinct studies.
903
Book Reviews
The analyses in chapters 5-l 7 are arranged by their focus on particular developmental stages from infancy through young adulthood. While the studies of the impact of poverty on adolescence and later life outcomes provide important, timely analyses, the editors devote considerably more attention to this topic than to the effects on younger children. The consequence of family poverty during infancy and the preschool years is one of the least understood areas in the literature. Given one of the main findings of the book, that “family economic conditions in early and middle childhood appear to be far more important for shaping ability and achievement than they do during adolescence” (p. 597), it would have been useful to include more studies focusing specifically on early childhood. Taken together, the studies in Consequences of Growing Up Poor contribute substantially to a growing knowledge of the effects of poverty on children. In the current era of welfare reform, studies with empirically based findings that have clear policy implications are most likely to have a meaningful impact on children’s future well-being. Implications for policy were considered by the editors to be a secondary focus of the book, and indeed, disappointingly few pages are devoted explicitly to that purpose. However, the findings in this volume can at least be called on by policymakers and advocates for children to select as their highest priority, programs and policies intended to reduce or mitigate the effects of child poverty for the youngest children. This book’s well-written, clear presentation makes it recommended reading for researchers in social welfare or child development, as well as for those working directly with poor children and their families. Karie A4. Frasch University of California at Berkeley References National Center for Children in Poverty. (1996). Young children in poverty. New York: School of Public Health, Columbia University. Smeeding, T., & Rainwater, L. (1995). Cross-national trends in income poverty and dependence: The evidence for young adults in the eighties. In K. McFate (Ed.). Poverty, inequality, and thefuture of social policy. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.