Most Disadvantaged Children

This paper examines the prevalence of multiple and overlapping family-level disadvantages among children and describes the neighborhoods where most disadvantaged children live. The figures presented are based on the experiences of a sample of 5,000 children drawn from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We identify most disadvantaged children using four family-level disadvantages: living in a family that is poor, that is headed by a woman, that receives public assistance, and/or that has a jobless head. We find that 15% of all children experience two or more disadvantages, but only one in twenty-five children live in a poor family that receives public assistance and is headed by a jobless woman. These most disadvantaged children are a minority among those receiving public assistance or even of those experiencing two or more disadvantages. We find that only a minority of these children live in poor neighborhoods, and we examine the extent to which these children remain in disadvantaged families over time. We also find that minority children are greatly over-represented among most disadvantaged children and that this racial imbalance is greater than that for any single disadvantage. These results suggest that the dual burden of growing up in a family with multiple and overlapping disadvantages and in a poor neighborhood is a uniquely Black experience. This portends continued racial inequality well into the next century

Demographic economics · Developmental psychology · Disadvantage · Disadvantaged · Economic growth · Economics · Inequality · Panel Study of Income Dynamics · Political science · Poverty · Single parent · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies · Psychology · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies

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