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Key Text The Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty: An Overview

Author: Kate Bird
Date: 2007
Size: 59 pages (656 KB)

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Summary

What factors increase the likelihood that poverty is passed from one generation to another? This paper, jointly published by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), reviews the literature on intergenerational transmission (IGT) of poverty. It examines a number of factors related to individuals and the poverty of their households that can contribute to the transmission of poverty or can mitigate against it. An explicit focus on children and early childhood development is insufficient. Research in this area would also benefit from the study of the impact of chronic poverty in adults and the factors that lead to its transmission from one generation to another.

Poverty is not transferred as a ‘package’, but as a complex set of positive and negative factors that affect an individual’s chances of experiencing poverty, either now or later in life. Although highly context-specific, household characteristics and initial endowments are important. Using the livelihood framework, it is possible to explore how these endowments and abilities combine with structural and extra-household factors, such as conflict, caste, ethnicity, and religion, to influence individual and household responses to poverty shocks throughout the course of a lifetime.

Households respond to shocks by drawing down sequentially on their assets to develop coping strategies. Therefore, initial endowments are a significant element, but households can also rely on external factors such as social networks and social policy options to help in dealing with prolonged or multiple crises. Resilience is defined as a household’s ability to ‘bounce back’ from a single shock, attaining pre-shock income and consumption levels within a reasonable amount of time. Resilience, therefore, is a function of a combination of individual, household, and societal factors that allow certain children to emerge from disadvantaged background to attain prosperity. This resilience, however, is limited, resulting in the following findings:

While being a poor child certainly increases the chances of being a poor adult, this is by no means guaranteed.
Poverty transmission can vary based on the time and duration of poverty experienced by the child and the extent to which the particular factors experienced are reversible.
Research suggests that children are most vulnerable in utero and in early infancy to the effects of poverty.

A review of the existing literature also suggests a number of recommendations for future study of the intergenerational transmission of poverty. These recommendations will help to broaden the scope of work in this area, significantly improving the possible outcomes:

IGT research cannot simply focus on children and how their early life experience either facilitates or limits their opportunities and life chances.
Future work should also explore the factors that impact on adults in such a way that the chronic poverty they experience is likely to be transmitted intergenerationally.

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Source: Bird K., 2007, 'The Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty: An Overview', Overseas Development Institute, London, and the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, Manchester, United Kingdom
Author: Kate Bird , k.bird[at]odi.org.uk
Organisation: Overseas Development Institute (ODI), http://www.odi.org.uk/