Thursday, November 20, 2008

Intergenerational Transmission (IGT) of Poverty. -Chronic Poverty Research Centre. No, 547.

A paper from the Chronic Poverty Research Centre/

The intergenerational transmission of poverty (ITP)--the process by which poor parents transmit poverty and disadvantage to their children--appears to be a common problem not only on developing countries but also at a minor scale, on developed ones. According to a CEPAL study, only about 20% of children of poorly educated parents are able to finish secondary education in Latin America, a level judged the minimum for a person to be able to move out of poverty. Kate Bird's paper,"The intergenerational transmission of poverty," [pdf here] using data from the United States, mentions that the key determinants of intergenerational poverty are "parental poverty, family structure, parental welfare use, neighbourhood disadvantages, social isolation and labour market conditions (Boggess and Corcoran, 1999:3; Boggess et al, 2005). The least well-off families do not have the same chances as children from less poor households of becoming economically secure (Bowles et al., 2005). Children from poor families have less access to material resources (food, shelter, health care) and also less access to community resources (good schools, safe neighbourhoods, adequate governmental services) than children in families with adequate economic resources (Corcoran and Chaudry, 1997:41)"..

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