Ten
years later finds many families still loving in high-poverty neighborhoods
after economy and housing collapse
Rice University
More children are
living in high-poverty neighborhoods following the Great Recession -- a
troubling shift because children in these neighborhoods are a year behind
academically, according to new research from researchers at Rice University,
the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Wisconsin.
"Family Poverty
and Neighborhood Poverty: Links With Children's School Readiness Before and
After the Great Recession" examines how neighborhood and family poverty
predict children's academic skills and classroom behavior when they start
school, and whether associations have changed over a period of 12 years that
included the 2008 recession.
The researchers used data from the Early Childhood
Longitudinal Study and examined cohorts of kindergarteners from across the U.S.
in 1998 and 2010.
The research revealed
that more children whose parents were not already poor were living in
high-poverty neighborhoods following the Great Recession. In 1998, 36 percent
of children lived in moderate-low, moderate-high and high-poverty
neighborhoods. In 2010, the number rose to 43.9 percent.
The researchers defined a high-poverty neighborhood as one where 40 percent or more of residents live below the poverty line. A moderate-high-poverty neighborhood was defined as having poverty rates of 20-39.9 percent; moderate-low, 14-19.9 percent; and low, 13.9 percent or less.
When broken down by
race, non-Hispanic white children had the largest change in terms of living in
high-poverty neighborhoods. In 2010 they were 13.2 percentage points more
likely to live in moderate-low-, moderate-high- and high-poverty neighborhoods
than in 1998.
In contrast, in 2010 non-Hispanic black children were only 4.1
percentage points more likely to live in a moderate-high-poverty neighborhood.
Hispanic children were 5 percentage points more likely to live in a
high-poverty neighborhood in 2010.
Rachel Kimbro, a
professor of sociology in Rice's School of Social Sciences and founding
director of the Kinder Institute's Urban Health Program, cautioned that these
numbers do not mean that things got better for minority groups; it meant that
things got worse for non-Hispanic whites.
"Although
post-recession, more white kids were living in higher poverty neighborhoods,
minority children are still significantly more likely overall to live in higher
poverty neighborhoods," she said.
Kimbro said she and
her fellow authors are uncertain whether this shift is because higher-income
families moved into high-poverty neighborhoods due to home foreclosure or other
factors, or families within moderate-poverty neighborhoods losing income and
becoming poorer (thus increasing the number of poor residents).
Regardless, the
results are worrying, she said, because children who live in poor neighborhoods
are, on average, a year behind academically, according to standardized math,
reading and writing assessment tests of the students.
"Regardless of
individual family income, there is something about living in a higher poverty
neighborhood that negatively affects education outcomes," she said.
"This is a topic that should be of great concern for educators and
policymakers alike."
Kimbro hopes the
research will shed light on the impact of neighborhoods on academic success and
will allow educators and policymakers to design interventions to help
underperforming students.
Sharon Wolf of the
University of Pennsylvania served as the study's lead author, and Katherine
Magnuson of the University of Wisconsin served as a co-author.