The Intergenerational Persistence of Poverty in High-Income Countries
The Intergenerational Persistence of Poverty in High-Income Countries
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CRIS Scientific Seminar 2024-2025
Friday, October 4th 2024, 11:30 am
Sciences Po, Room K011 (1, St-Thomas)
The Intergenerational Persistence of Poverty in High-Income Countries
Zachary Parolin
Assistant Professor of Social Policy, Bocconi University
ExpPov Director (ERC Started Grant funded project)
Childhood poverty increases the likelihood of adult poverty. However, past research offers conflicting accounts of cross-national variation in the strength of, and mechanisms underpinning, the intergenerational persistence of poverty.
This study investigates differences in intergenerational poverty in the United States (U.S.), Australia, Denmark, Germany, and United Kingdom (UK) using administrative- and survey-based panel datasets.
We decompose intergenerational poverty into family background effects, mediation effects, tax/transfer insurance effects, and a residual poverty penalty. Intergenerational poverty in the U.S. is four times stronger than in Denmark and Germany, and twice as strong as in Australia and the UK. The U.S. disadvantage is not channeled through family background, mediators, neighborhood effects, or racial/ethnic discrimination.
Instead, the U.S. has comparatively weak tax/transfer insurance effects and a more severe residual poverty penalty. Should the U.S. adopt the tax/transfer insurance effects of peer countries, its intergenerational poverty persistence could decline by more than one-third.
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