Gibson-Davis Christina, Keister Lisa A, Gennetian Lisa A
Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, United States.
Department of Sociology, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, United States.
Child Youth Serv Rev. 2025 Feb;169. doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2024.108047. Epub 2024 Nov 24.
Net worth poverty, defined as having wealth (assets minus debts) that is less than one-fourth the federal poverty line, can have negative associations with children's development. Net worth poverty can reflect the lack of assets or the presence of debts, with the former posing greater developmental risks than the latter. Structural inequalities and racial discrimination have led to higher rates of asset poverty for Black than White families, suggesting that net worth poverty may pose disproportionate risks for Black children. To inform this hypothesis, this study examines how net worth poverty and its subcomponents of asset and debt poverty relate to Black and White children's academic and behavioral outcomes. Data come from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and its Child Development Study, which includes 3,164 Black and 3,578 White children aged 3-17 observed between 2002 and 2019. Regression models estimated the association between poverty (measured as net worth, income, assets, or debt) and four child outcomes: reading and math achievement and externalizing and internalizing behavior scores. In models that control for income poverty, among White children, net worth poverty, as well as asset and debt poverty, was associated with worse outcomes. Contrary to expectations, using the same set of covariates, net worth poverty among Black children was not a significant predictor of outcomes. For this racial group, asset poverty was negatively related to outcomes, but effects were roughly half the size as those found for White children. Additionally, debt poverty among Black children was not associated with either positive or negative effects. The small effect of asset poverty, when coupled with the lack of effects for debt poverty, mechanically explains why net poverty was not detrimental for Black children. This study underscores the importance of wealth deprivation in studies of poverty and shows that the negative effects of net worth poverty differ between White and Black children.
净值贫困被定义为拥有的财富（资产减去债务）低于联邦贫困线的四分之一，它可能与儿童发展存在负面关联。净值贫困可以反映资产的缺乏或债务的存在，前者比后者带来更大的发展风险。结构性不平等和种族歧视导致黑人家庭的资产贫困率高于白人家庭，这表明净值贫困可能给黑人儿童带来不成比例的风险。为了验证这一假设，本研究考察了净值贫困及其资产和债务贫困子成分与黑人和白人儿童学业及行为结果之间的关系。数据来自收入动态面板研究及其儿童发展研究，其中包括2002年至2019年间观察到的3164名3至17岁的黑人儿童和3578名白人儿童。回归模型估计了贫困（以净值、收入、资产或债务衡量）与四项儿童结果之间的关联：阅读和数学成绩以及外化和内化行为得分。在控制收入贫困的模型中，对于白人儿童，净值贫困以及资产和债务贫困都与较差的结果相关。与预期相反，使用相同的协变量集，黑人儿童的净值贫困并不是结果的显著预测因素。对于这个种族群体，资产贫困与结果呈负相关，但影响大小约为白人儿童的一半。此外，黑人儿童的债务贫困与正面或负面影响均无关联。资产贫困的微小影响，再加上债务贫困没有影响，从机制上解释了为什么净值贫困对黑人儿童没有不利影响。这项研究强调了财富剥夺在贫困研究中的重要性，并表明净值贫困的负面影响在白人和黑人儿童之间存在差异。
