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What future is there for children from underprivileged homes ? Input from American research studies.
In the United States, various studies – mainly done since the reform of the Social Benefit System in the middle of the 1990s– have shown that there is a greater risk of children raised in poor families becoming poor adults than those who have grown up in families that are not poor. Furthermore, the longer poverty lasts, the earlier it will have an effect on children and the greater the negative effects for their future will be. Whilst there is consensus amongst researchers on these conclusions, this is, however, not the case for determining how poverty is passed on. Reading of work done on the subject reveals that poverty is passed on through a series of parent characteristics and also from the environment in which the families live, and is, thus, not only a result of their income level. Indeed, the income level seems to affect the whole of children's growing-up phase and in various fields : cognitive development, school results and employability potential, income and risk of poverty at an adult age. However, a measure, whose sole goal is to increase parents' income without taking into account the social and family environment of the children, would not be sufficient to significantly improve a child's future. In France, the absence of a sample group, which follows children over a period of years, such as is carried out by American researchers, results in a lack of input data, from work done to gain more knowledge on how poverty is passed on children, for the benefit of public debates.