Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty and Inequality: Parental Resources and Schooling Attainment and Children's Human Capital in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Jere R. Behrman, University of Pennsylvania; Whitney Schott, University of Pennsylvania; Subha Mani, University of Pennsylvania; Benjamin T. Crookston, Brigham Young University; Kirk Dearden, Boston University; Le Thuc Duc, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences; Lia C.H. Fernald, University of California Berkeley; Aryeh D Stein, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2017-07-01
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2017 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/691971
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Economic Development and Cultural Change
• ISSN: 0013-0079
• Volume: 65
• Issue: 4
• Start Page: 657
• End Page: 697
• Grant/Funding Information: This research has been supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Global Health Grant OPP10327313), Eunice Shriver Kennedy National Institute of Child Health and Development (Grant R01 HD070993) and Grand Challenges Canada (Grant 0072-03 to the Grantee, The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania).
• Keywords: EDUCATION; Planning & Development; Public Administration; PSYCHOSOCIAL STIMULATION; Area Studies; HEALTH; GUATEMALAN ADULTS; NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTATION; LOW-INCOME; GROWTH; EARLY-CHILDHOOD; Business & Economics; Social Sciences; Economics; EARNINGS MOBILITY; DEVELOPING-COUNTRIES
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Public Health; Economics, General

Abstract

Academic and policy literatures on intergenerational transmissions of poverty and inequality suggest that improving schooling attainment and income for parents in poor households will lessen poverty and inequality in their children's generation through increased human capital accumulated by their children. However, magnitudes of such effects are unknown. We use data on children born in the 21st century in four developing countries to simulate how changes in parents' schooling attainment and consumption would affect poverty and inequality in both the parent's and their children's generations. We find that increasing minimum schooling or income substantially reduces poverty and inequality in the parent's generation, but does not carry over to reducing poverty and inequality substantially in the children's generation. Therefore, while reductions in poverty and inequality in the parents' generation are desirable in themselves to improve welfare among current adults, they are not likely to have large impacts in reducing poverty and particularly in reducing inequality in human capital in the next generation.