Wednesday 23 January 2019

The long‐run effect of childhood poverty and the mediating role of education

an article by Luna Bellani (University of Konstanz and IZA Institute of Labor Economics, , Bonn, Germany; Carlo Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics, Milan, Italy) and Michela Bia (Luxembourg Institute of Socio‐Economic Research, Esch‐sur‐Alzette, Luxembourg) published in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Statistics in Society Series A Volume 182 Issue 1 (January 2019)

Summary

The paper examines the role of education as a causal channel through which growing up poor affects the economic outcomes in adulthood in the European Union.

We apply a potential outcomes approach to quantify those effects and we provide a sensitivity analysis on possible unobserved confounders, such as child ability. Our estimates indicate that being poor in childhood significantly decreases the level of income in adulthood and increases the average probability of being poor.

Moreover, our results reveal a significant role of education in this intergenerational transmission. These results are particularly relevant for Mediterranean and central and eastern European countries.

Full text (PDF 32pp)


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