Parental income shocks and outcomes of disadvantaged youth in the United States

Authors

Marianne Page, University Of California
Ann Huff Stevens, University Of California
Jason M. Lindo, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

84937

Publication Details

Page, M., Stevens, A. Huff. & Lindo, J. M. (2009). Parental income shocks and outcomes of disadvantaged youth in the United States. In J. Gruber (Eds.), The Problems of Disadvantaged Youth: An Economic Perspective (pp. 213-235). Chicago, United States: University of Chicago Press.

Link to publisher version (URL)

University of Chicago Press

Abstract

Government policies that increase the incomes of poor families have been promoted as a way of improving children's life chances on the grounds that children who grow up in rich families tend to have better socioeconomic outcomes as adults than children who grow up in poor families. Yet the process that generates the relationship between parents' incomes and those of their children, though well documented, is not well understood. One possibility is that differences in family income lead to differences in parents' monetary investments in their children. Another is that differences in family income reflect differences in parents' innate characteristics that are passed on to their children.