The Long Reach of Early Childhood Poverty

Abstract

Most poor children achieve less, exhibit more problem behaviors, and are less healthy than children reared in more affluent families. We look beyond correlations such as these to a recent set of US-based studies that attempt to assess the causal impact of childhood poverty on later attainment. We pay particular attention to the potentially harmful effects of poverty early in childhood and to links between early poverty and such adult outcomes as earnings, work hours, criminal arrests, and health status. Evidence suggests that early poverty has substantial detrimental effects on school achievement, adult earnings, and work hours, but on neither general adult health nor such behavioral outcomes as out-of-wedlock childbearing and arrests.