NCJ Number
240173
Date Published
August 2011
Length
26 pages
Annotation
This study explores two primary reasons poverty may persist across generations.
Abstract
First, family poverty and single parenthood may make a youth more likely to engage in risky behaviors. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of poor economic outcomes in early adulthood. Second, family poverty and single parenthood make a youth more likely to drop out of school, which in turn increases the likelihood of poor outcomes. If these dynamics among poor families yield poverty in young adulthood, then it may be necessary to supplement traditional anti-poverty policies with strategies to prevent risky behavior and dropping out of school among high-risk youth. This study estimates the direct and indirect effects of adolescent vulnerability (family poverty and single parenthood) on economic performance in young adulthood, using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 with a two-stage recursive model similar to the mediation models used in psychology and the path analysis models used in sociology. The most notable result was that the indirect effects of family income, acting through risky behavior and dropping out of school were largely insignificant. This suggests that the best way to break the cycle of poverty is probably to address poverty directly, rather than targeting the causal mechanisms through which poverty may operate, such as risky behavior or dropping out of school. A more complicated policy strategy emerges for children of single parents compared with growing up in a low-income family. Single parenthood's impact operates, in part, through youth risk-taking behavior and dropping out of school. Policies aimed at preventing risky behavior and promoting high-school graduation for children from single-parent families may be an effective way of breaking the link between single parenthood and poor economic outcomes. 4 tables, 1 figure, 10 notes, and 28 references