Intergenerational Poverty Research Articles

The KidScope Study: An Analysis of a Community Paediatric Clinic Set in a Disadvantaged Area of Ireland

The most critical period of human development is from conception to age six years when important brain structures develop. These structures influence child development, well-being, learning, and behaviours that follow. Research shows children from economically disadvantaged areas have poorer developmental, health, and lifelong outcomes. A considerable proportion of developmental delay is avoidable and early detection and intervention can improve child, family, and community outcomes. Ireland’s disjointed early intervention system sees children from more affluent communities access services faster through paid private assessment and intervention. KidScope is the only community paediatric clinic in Ireland to offer assessment and onward referral from birth to six years within a disadvantaged area. The clinic intercepts the gap within the early intervention system and breaks the cycle of intergenerational poverty by disrupting the impact exclusion to healthcare has on vulnerable children and families. We aim to evaluate KidScope in order to contribute to the evidence on addressing avoidable developmental delay in disadvantaged areas through early detection and timely referral to services. Findings to date highlight the challenges vulnerable families face when accessing paediatric healthcare, the healthcare needs of children experiencing adversity, and how community paediatric clinics identify and support developmental delay.

Community perceptions of the social impacts of the Metolong Dam and Reservoir in Lesotho

In Lesotho, large dams supply South Africa with water, earning Lesotho royalties, as well as supplying this small nation with water and electricity. This study investigated the perceptions of residents regarding the impacts of one of these dams, namely the Metolong Dam and Reservoir. The methodology was qualitative in nature, using document analysis, field notes and semi-structured interviews. Results show that local villagers felt the overall social, economic and environmental impacts were mixed. Environmentally, the area suffered from noise and air pollution, soil erosion and habitat loss during construction, although there were efforts to preserve rare species. Economically, some locals lost land, livestock or income streams, or became food poor. Others however, were able to adopt fish farming or secure employment. Bit community members felt side-lined in terms of employment, with few placed in managerial or supervisory positions. Culturally, people lost access to their ancestral lands and, as a result, despite the preservation of cultural heritage sites, felt their culture was undermined. The influx of migrant workers – although contributing to the local economy – was blamed for young females in the area becoming HIV positive or disrespecting their parents. Although the project built and rehabilitated schools, few local children benefited due to high school fees. Forced idleness, intergenerational poverty and alcoholism now plague the community, with locals relying heavily on grants, remittances, pensions and beer brewing for survival. The study concludes that while the Metolong Dam brought benefits to South Africa, Lesotho and the local community, benefits at local level were uneven at best.

“Younger women had more access to COVID-19 information”: An intersectional analysis of factors influencing women and girls’ access to COVID-19 information in Rohingya and host communities in Bangladesh

The Rohingya and Bangladeshi host communities live at a heightened risk of COVID-19 impact due to their pre-existing vulnerabilities, religious beliefs, and strict socio-cultural and gender norms that render primarily women and girls vulnerable. However, the extent of this vulnerability varies within and across population groups in the host and Rohingya communities. The intersectionality lens helps identify, recognize, and understand these factors that create inequities within populations. This study explored the factors that influenced the women and girls' access to information during the COVID-19 pandemic through an intersectional lens. This paper presents partial findings from the exploratory qualitative part of mixed-method research conducted in ten Rohingya camps and four wards of the adjacent host communities in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Data were extracted from 24 in-depth interviews (12 in each community) conducted from November 2020 to March 2021 with diverse participants, including adolescent girls, younger women, adult women, pregnant and lactating mothers, persons with disabilities, older adults, and single female-household heads. All participants provided verbal informed consent before the interviews. In the case of the adolescents, assent was taken from the participants, and verbal informed consent was taken from their parents/guardians. The ethical clearance of this study was sought from the institutional review board of BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University. We find that the women and girls living in Rohingya communities exhibit a more profound structural interplay of factors within their socio-ecological ecosystem depending on their age, power, and position in the society, physical (dis)abilities, and pre-existing vulnerabilities stemming from their exodus, making them more vulnerable to COVID-19 impact by hindering their access to information. Unlike Rohingya, the host women and girls explain the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their access to information through the lens of intergenerational poverty and continuous strain on existing resources, thereby highlighting shrinking opportunities due to the influx, COVID-19 infodemic and misinformation, access to digital devices amongst the adolescents, and restricted mobility mainly due to transport, school closures, and distance-related issues. Moreover, the socio-cultural beliefs and the gender norms imposed on women and adolescent girls played an essential role in accessing information regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and consequently influenced their perception of and response to the disease and its safety protocols. Socio-cultural gender norms led to mobility restrictions, which compounded by lockdowns influenced their access to information resulting in dependency on secondary sources, usually from male members of their families, which can easily mislead/provide mis/partial information. The younger age groups had more access to primary sources of information and a broader support network. In comparison, the older age groups were more dependent on secondary sources, and their social networks were limited to their family members due to their movement difficulty because of age/aging-related physical conditions. This study explored and analyzed the intersectional factors that influenced the women and girls' access to information during the COVID-19 pandemic from two contexts with varying degrees of pre-existing vulnerability and its extent. These include gender, age, state of vulnerability, power and privilege, socio-economic status, and physical (dis)ability. It is imperative that services geared towards the most vulnerable are contextualized and consider the intersectional factors that determine the communities' access to information.

The relationship of intergenerational poverty and exclusionary school discipline

AbstractMany prior studies have documented disparities in school discipline practices across racial, economic, and other student characteristics. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which students affected by intergenerational poverty (IGP) received infractions (incidents) and experienced exclusionary disciplines (suspensions and expulsions), relative to other student groups. To do so, this study examined incident and discipline rates, calculated the number of lost days of instruction per 100 students, considered the number of days lost based on disciplines received, and conducted an analysis of the disciplines received by students affected by IGP and similar peers. Results suggest that students affected by IGP have higher discipline rates than other student groups and were 1.78 times more likely to receive a discipline than similar peers. Policy considerations include a set of metrics useful at the state and local level for ongoing monitoring, the importance of data quality, and the need to revisit related policies and their implementations.

The role of UNICEF in addressing child marriage issues in Indonesia

Early marriage completely undermines children's human rights. Previous studies have shown that child marriage is inextricably linked to various adverse impacts, from violated children's rights to obtain education and access to health services to intergenerational poverty. Indonesia is in the 8th highest rate of early childhood marriages internationally and is ranked 2nd in ASEAN. This phenomenon has put Indonesia in the spotlight of The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). This research, which relies on interviews and observations from various related documents, aims to analyze the role implemented by UNICEF in tackling the problem of child marriage in Indonesia for the 2017-2020 period. The theories and concepts applied are the theory of international organizations, role theory, and the concept of child marriage. Furthermore, the author used data analysis model according to Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña, which consists of data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification. The final results of this study reveal that UNICEF is playing their role in providing information on child marriage, advocating for policies, introducing innovations to address challenges, and supplying technical assistance to improve the quality of social services. In addition, UNICEF partners with governments to ensure that resources are employed to meet the needs of children, create spaces for children to be involved in the development process and strengthen collaboration for child's interests.Keywords: UNICEF; child marriage; international organizations; role theory.

POLICE REFORM IN DIVIDED TIMES

POLICE REFORM IN DIVIDED TIMES

Intersecting Systems of Power Shaping Health and Wellbeing of Urban Waste Workers in the Context of COVID-19 in Vijayawada and Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India

Background: Waste work in India is an undervalued role relegated to historically marginalised communities. The informal nature of their work coupled with lack of state regulation keeps waste workers trapped in poverty. This study aims to understand how intersecting systems and relations of power impact the agency of waste workers to shape their health and wellbeing. Methods: We used in-depth interviews, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions to collect primary data from waste worker communities in Vijayawada and Guntur in India. Thematic analysis was used to analyse data using conceptual frameworks relating to wellbeing and power. Results: Inter-generational poverty and lack of access to social determinants of health keeps waste workers trapped in a cycle of debt and poverty. They experience negative wellbeing owing to material and relational deprivations that are sustained by a nexus of power relations, explained using the themes of “power over”, “power to”, “power with”, and “power-within”. Conclusions: The ability of communities to exercise agency is constrained by the power exercised on their lives by the state and society. NGOs play a supportive role for the realisation of rights, but the ability of waste workers to organize and effect change is limited to coping strategies.

The Costs of Caring: Navigating Material Challenges When Adults Informally Host Youth Facing Homelessness

Couch hopping is a significant feature of youth homelessness in the United States. Every year, half of youth ages 18 to 25 who experience housing instability report couch hopping—also known as couch surfing or doubling up. Emerging work suggests that in some intergenerational informal hosting arrangements, youth and their adult hosts can form meaningful and supportive relationships. However, hosts also navigate material challenges that could threaten the stability of these arrangements. Based on in-depth interviews with nine youth ages 17 to 23 in informal hosting arrangements and 10 informal hosts, we describe how increased household costs and lease and benefits restrictions can impact stability, and the strategies hosts and youth mobilized to address them. We place hosts’ instability in the context of intergenerational poverty and structural racism, reframing material challenges as opportunities to strengthen the village of support youth need to make sustained exits from homelessness.

“I Have Always thought that, If I Am Poor, I’m Also Supposed to Study Poorly”

The goal of this study is to highlight the embodied nature of social class inequalities in education. Drawing from a larger study that examined educational outcomes and work careers of young people whose families received welfare benefits in Croatia when these individuals were of high school age, the article focuses on biographical narrative interviews with three young individuals. These strategically selected cases were characterized by a shared experience of living in poverty that was, nevertheless, marked by very different initial intersections of social advantages and disadvantages (middle-class fall into poverty, intergenerational poverty, and poverty intersecting with anti-Roma racism). Based on the comparison of these three life stories, this study utilizes Bourdieu’s concept of habitus as a conceptual tool, incorporating both cognitive and affective schemas, to examine how these young individuals framed their lives and educational trajectories. In doing so, this study builds on the work by scholars such as Reay who extend the explorations of embodied social inequalities in education into the realm of emotions, which are—in line with the growing body of work in the sociology of emotions—understood as embedded in (unequal) social relations. Therefore, the analysis of this study focuses on how, in the three examined life stories, the horizons of probable, possible, and unimaginable were perceived very differently and shaped by distinct affective structures. The findings of this study suggest that cognitive and affective schemas function jointly, as integral elements of a social inequalities’ mechanism rooted in the compounding of advantages or disadvantages.

A framework for culturally appropriate and sustainable indigenous housing

Safe, secure and stable housing is central to social, emotional and economic well-being for individuals and families. This is recognised by the United Nations as a fundamental human right, yet when it comes to Indigenous housing individuals disproportionately experience unsafe, unstable and substandard housing. The absence of housing security is therefore a significant contributor to the intergenerational poverty experienced by some Indigenous individuals and families. The long-standing nature of this issue makes it appear intractable and systemic, however, there is increasing evidence that this is not the case, and that governments, working in partnership with Indigenous organisations and communities, can begin to change these dynamics. This brief is based on an extensive review of the multidisciplinary evidence base, including literature and policy analysis as well as empirical investigation. Sources include research articles, official reports and statistics and scholarly debates, as well as media commentary and debate. These, along with original data sources, are analysed to identify the key policy learnings for a framework for culturally appropriate and sustainable Indigenous housing.

Limits to Transformational Potential: Analysing Entitlement and Agency within a Conditional Cash Transfer Program in the Philippines

Despite serving as the Philippines’ main social protection strategy, debate continues surrounding the ability of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) to meet its long-term goal of breaking cycles of intergenerational poverty. To engage with this debate, this study brings together the constructs of entitlement and agency to analyse how different actors associated with 4Ps understand and experience the program. Drawing on forty-three semi-structured interviews with 4Ps beneficiaries, non-beneficiaries, and implementers, we provide a provisional explanation as to why a disconnect exists between the long-term goals of 4Ps and the experiences with the program among these different actors. In addition, this study highlights how challenges associated with the design and implementation of 4Ps, including limited transparency and communication of the program’s eligibility requirements, rigid monitoring of beneficiary compliance, and delays in receiving cash transfers, may constrain the transformational potential of this social protection strategy.

Ways Forward in Preventing Severe Maternal Morbidity and Maternal Health Inequities: Conceptual Frameworks, Definitions, and Data, from a Population Health Perspective.

Ways Forward in Preventing Severe Maternal Morbidity and Maternal Health Inequities: Conceptual Frameworks, Definitions, and Data, from a Population Health Perspective.

WASH access and stunting

Introduction: The literature suggests that children living in the areas with widespread open-defecation, lack of access to safe drinking water and provision of hand hygiene are exposed to a higher level of microbial contamination. These conditions often keep children undernourished, diminishes their cognitive skills leading to intergenerational poverty. Methods: Using the individual and household data from Indian Human Development Survey 2012 (IHDS II), the study used binary logistic model to analyse the impact of household-based water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and health outcome of the children in the Empowered Action Group (EAG) states of India. Results: The study suggested that having access to safe water, the chances of being not stunted are 20 per cent lower compared to the children accessing unsafe water. Similarly, children who have a household toilet and practice better hand hygiene, have 20 per cent higher chances of being not stunted against open defecating children and children who do not practice hand-hygiene habits. Other than WASH, the children’s demographic traits of being at a higher age, being female over male, indicated a significantly higher odds of being stunted.

Brazil's Bolsa Família Programme: Aspirations and Realities of Poverty Reduction and Intergenerational Change

ABSTRACTThis article considers the transformative potential of conditional cash transfers to address intergenerational poverty. Drawing on empirical evidence collected through qualitative research in the northeast of Brazil, it traces notions of intergenerational change and continuity amongst young recipients of the Bolsa Família programme (BFP) and their families. It argues that the BFP has contributed to raising expectations and aspirations of social mobility, through a policy narrative that explicitly links education to poverty reduction alongside some relatively limited but nonetheless significant intergenerational changes in material conditions and access to education. However, rising aspirations have not been matched by a concomitant expansion of opportunities available to poor young people in education and the labour market. The article thus highlights the contradictions that arise between policy narratives, the aspirations these narratives engender, and the realities of young people's everyday lives.

A longitudinal study of intergenerational transmission of poverty in Hong Kong across the 2010s: Social investment, homeownership and mother’s education

This study examines the extent to which poverty is passed from parents to children in Hong Kong based on the social investment thesis. Through tracking the educational and career trajectories of the second generation (aged 23–25) of 77 families, this study suggests that adolescents with poor parents have a 202 percent higher chance of being poor in young adulthood. This poverty-continuation probability increases dramatically to 681 percent if parental poverty is defined in terms of homeownership rather than income. Another important factor that also affects intergenerational poverty is the mother’s educational level. Implications for social workers and policy makers are discussed.

The Impact of Income and Social Mobility on Colorectal Cancer Outcomes and Treatment: A Cross-sectional Study.

To determine the impact of income mobility on racial disparities in colorectal cancer. There are well-documented disparities in colorectal cancer treatment and outcomes between Black and White patients. Socioeconomic status, insurance, and other patient-level factors have been shown important, but little has been done to show the discriminatory factors that lead to these outcomes. Data were obtained from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End-Results database for Black and White patients with colorectal cancer between 2005 and 2015. County level measures of Black (BIM) and White income mobility (WIM) were obtained from the Opportunity Atlas as a measure of intergenerational poverty and social mobility. Regression models were created to assess the relative risk of advanced stage at diagnosis (Stage IV), surgery for localized disease (Stage I/II), and cancer-specific mortality. There was no significant association of BIM or WIM on advanced stage at diagnosis in Black or White patients. An increase of $10,000 of BIM was associated with a 9% decrease in hazards of death for both Black (hazard ratio 0.91, 95% confidence interval 0.86,0.95) and White (0.91, 95%CI 0.90,0.93) patients, while the same increase in WIM was associated with no significant difference in hazards among Black patients (hazard ratio 0.99, 95% confidence interval 0.97,1.02). There were no predicted racial differences in hazards of death at high levels of BIM. Increased Black income mobility significantly improves survival for both Black and White patients. Interventions aimed at increasing economic and social mobility could significantly decrease mortality in both Black and White patients while alleviating disparities in outcomes.

Book review: Clydesdale, Greg. 2021: Reducing Inter-generational Ethnic Poverty: Economics, Psychology and Culture

Clydesdale, Greg. 2021: Reducing Inter-generational Ethnic Poverty: Economics, Psychology and Culture (1st Edition). London: Routledge. vi + 121 pp. £120.00 (paperback), £33.29 eBook. ISBN 9780367616298 paper, 9781003105770 eBook. 10.4324/9781003105770.

Does literacy benefit internally displaced and returnee women and children?

ABSTRACT In this study we evaluate the impact of a literacy program for internally displaced female refugees in Afghanistan. The results of the evaluation show that the program was beneficial both for the women who received it and for their children, as participants were 50% points more likely to be able to read and write and 19% points more likely to work. The program also had positive effects on their children who were 2.6% points more likely to be enrolled in secondary school. Overall, the evaluation results suggest that adult literacy programs may mitigate intergenerational poverty traps.

Determinants of School Participation in Riau Province in 2019

Education has an important role in economic development, not only in driving economic growth but also in breaking intergenerational poverty. For this reason, the Government of Indonesia has implemented a 12-year compulsory education program in the last decade. Through this program, it is hoped that school enrollment rates will increase and economic development will be of higher quality. However, the implementation of this program was not without obstacles. This study aims to analyze the determinants of school participation in Riau Province in 2019 using data from the National Socio-Economic Survey (SUSENAS). The results of this study indicate that the education of the head of the household, the level of welfare and gender have a significant effect on school participation of children aged 7-18 years.

The effectiveness of a financial literacy and job-readiness curriculum for youth from low-income households

Intergenerational poverty and scarce financial resources can create and sustain detrimental behaviors and outcomes among adolescents. Efforts to increase financial literacy and job-related skills, however, can offer youth from low-income households knowledge, skills, and opportunities otherwise unavailable to them. Targeted interventions that combine financial literacy and job-readiness components may help adolescents disrupt the cycle of intergenerational poverty by increasing economic awareness, adaptive financial behaviors, and work-related skills. Drawing on career construction and asset theory, the present study examined changes in financial knowledge and labor skills among youth from low-income households (N = 111) over the course of their participation in the Road to Success curriculum as well as how changes varied across demographic characteristics of participants. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, t-test analyses, and MANCOVA. Results indicated several improvements from Wave 1 to Wave 2 as students developed job-readiness and financial literacy knowledge. Potential educational and policy implications are discussed.