Cumulative Disadvantage and Single-Parent Poverty

Roxana-Diana Burciu , Center for Demographic Studies
Zachary Parolin, Oxford University

Studies of single-parent poverty generally focus on poverty only after parenthood occurs. In contrast, this study revisits the sources of single-parent poverty through the lens of cumulative disadvantages (CD) that stem from individuals’ family incomes and county poverty rates during childhood. Conceptually, we extend the study of CD with application to single-parent poverty, viewing single parenthood as one mechanism of a broader CD process that connects childhood and adult poverty. Using life-course data from restricted-access Panel Study of Income Dynamics data, we confirm that childhood poverty and county poverty have additive effects on the likelihood of adult poverty, in part channeled through single parenthood. We then introduce a decomposition framework that dissects single-parent poverty into pre-parenthood and post-parenthood conditions. Pre-parenthood disadvantages account for more than two-thirds of the single-parent poverty rate and single parents’ increased likelihood of poverty relative to two-parent families; in contrast, the event of becoming a single parent accounts for a smaller share of single parents’ poverty rate. We conclude that evaluations of single-parent poverty not viewed through the lens of CD are bound to conflate post-parenthood disadvantages with the primary source of single-parents’ high poverty rates: adverse childhood conditions associated with strong selection into single parenthood.

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 Presented in Session 103. Singlehood and Partnerships across the Life Course