Maria Stanfors

Professor

The changing price of poverty: The association between childhood poverty and adult economic status in Sweden 1930 to 2015

Author

Gabriel Brea Martinez
Martin Dribe
Maria Stanfors

Summary, in English

Being poor during childhood increases the likelihood of being poor as an adult, which points to an intergenerational transmission of poverty. We know much more about this transmission for contemporary contexts than for the past, as extant research primarily covers the post-1960 period, and thus provides limited insights into the changing influence of poverty as societies modernize and welfare states develop. In this study, we analyze the association between childhood poverty and economic outcomes in adulthood for men and women who grew up in Southern Sweden between the 1930s and the early 1970s and who were followed to adulthood regardless of where in Sweden they resided (N=304,000). Our preliminary results show persisting impacts of childhood poverty for both men and women, although the impact for women tapers off over time. We show that the mediation effect of education is key to understand the long-term poverty impacts, from a gender perspective.

Department/s