Multifaceted Nature of Poverty and Differential Trajectories of Health Among Children

Background: The relationships between poverty and children’s health have been well documented, but the diverse and dynamic concept of poverty has not been thoroughly explored in child health studies. Until recently, studies of poverty dynamics in relation to child health are very limited, focusing on just the incidence of poverty, mainly chronic poverty. The limited knowledge on the dynamic between poverty-health is concerning since it is hard to capture the substantial variation within poverty experiences across childhood. Drawing on life course and cumulative disadvantage theory, we examined how multifaceted nature of poverty determine age-based trajectories of health status among children. Specifically, we focused on to what extent duration, depth, and subjective experience of poverty affect changes of physical health among children over time.

Method: Data came from eight waves of Korea Welfare Panel Study between 2006 and 2013. We restricted our sample to children aged under 18 at baseline (N=2,431, Obs=19,433). We used random coefficient regression in multi-level growth curve framework to examine poverty group differences in intra-individual change in health status.

Results: Results showed that all five poverty measures including the incidence, duration, and depth of poverty, and subjective poverty significantly influenced poor health among children. First, children who had ever experienced poverty had significantly poorer health status than non-poor, and their health became worse as they aged. Second, children who were chronically poor (more than seven years) were most likely to have poor health, followed by those who experienced poverty temporarily (one or two years). Third, the poverty gap had a significant association with their health status. Fourth, children below poverty line were more likely to have poor health. Interestingly, health among children near poor (i.e. closest to the poverty line) got worse faster than health among children in non-poor group and poorest group. Lastly, children whose parents reported they think they had difficult financial circumstances had significantly poorer health status than non-poor children.

 

Conclusion: As one of the first efforts to build empirical knowledge about child health trajectories by multifaceted nature of poverty, our findings highlight the utility of a broader approach that focuses on various measures of poverty in child health studies. We suggest potential needs for targeting the households who are chronically poor and are poorest among the poor in the short term and for reconsidering the near-poor who are often ineligible for government support due to their income close to the poverty threshold in the long run. Still, further research is needed to identify the effect of poverty dynamics in terms of poverty entry and exits and poverty timing on child health, and to examine poverty effect on various health indicators to determine whether the poverty patterns we document here are applicable to a wide array of health outcomes.