Beyond Income: Economic Contexts and Children's Development

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Recent declines in the income poverty rate for US children are heartening, but do not provide a comprehensive picture of the economic context for children. Indeed, factors such as income instability and wealth deprivation continue to characterize the experiences of many families with children, likely leading to negative consequences above and beyond any negative effects of income poverty. The three papers in this symposium highlight the importance of considering how wealth deprivation (also known as net worth poverty), assets, debts, and income instability contribute to family and children’s economic contexts. Gibson-Davis et al., with data from then Panel Study of Income Dynamics, provide the first analysis as to how net worth poverty and its subcategories, debt poverty and asset poverty, predict reading and math achievement and behavioral outcomes for White and Black children. Miller et al., using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and its Child Development Survey, analyze how assets and debts predict the development of children and adolescents, after other aspects of economic circumstances (i.e., family income and income volatility) are accounted for. They also consider how such effects vary by developmental stage. Abrahamson-Richards uses the Washington Merged Longitudinal Administrative Dataset to examine income, income stability, and work patterns among American Indian and Alaska Native parents. Using three different data sets across diverse populations, these papers collectively address how a narrow focus on income and income poverty may undercount the risk faced by children and their families, particularly if those families are racial and ethnic minorities.

Sub Unit

• Social Policy

Chair

• Christina Gibson-Davis, Duke Univeristy

Discussant

• Natasha Pilkauskas, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Individual Presentations

• Net Worth Poverty and Child Well-being: Black-White Differences - Presenting Author: Christina Gibson-Davis, Duke Univeristy; Lisa Keister, Duke University; Lisa Gennetian, Duke University

• Assets & Debts and Child Development: Main Effects and Developmental Differences - Presenting Author: Tamara Podvysotska, University of Pittsburgh; Portia Miller, University of Pittsburgh; Jamie L Hanson, University of Pittsburgh; Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal, University of Pittsburgh

• Patterns of Perinatal Income Instability among American Indian and Alaska Native Working Parents in Washington State - Presenting Author: Tess Abrahamson-Richards, University of Washington