Urban Poverty Reborn

Abstract

This article draws on a longitudinal study of a poor neighborhood in Lima, Peru, to question received wisdom concerning the intergenerational transmission of poverty. The research follows a sample of 56 families over nearly 30 years. It focuses on the efforts of parents to launch their children on what they hope will be different and superior life courses (compared to their own), despite their limited resources. Members of the second generation are still likely to begin their adult lives in poverty, with notable differences in the positions and trajectories of men and women. The sources of second generation poverty are different from that of the parents, however. The case demonstrates how poverty is a dynamic and contingent process that must be related to the specific historical, political, social and cultural factors contributing to its rebirth in successive generations.