page_title: Juvenilization of poverty
section_title: Trends in child poverty up to 2010
hierarchical_section_title: Juvenilization of poverty / Trends in child poverty up to 2010
caption_attribution_description: English: Trends in Child Poverty Rates, by Race/Ethnicity, 1959-2009
context_page_description: The term juvenilization of poverty is one used to describe the processes by which children are at a higher risk for being poor, suffer consistent and long-term negative effects due to deprivation, and are disproportionately affected by systemic issues that perpetuate poverty. The term connotes not just the mere existence of child poverty but the increase in both relative and absolute measures of poverty among children as compared to both other vulnerable groups and the population at large.
  Academic study of the juvenilization of poverty attempts to explain the methodical ways in which children are systematically disenfranchised by institutions, government welfare spending, and opportunities for health and wellness. Research also connects the juvenilization of poverty to overall trends in family structures, parental work, and economic supports for children and families. In particular, the juvenilization of poverty is closely linked to the "feminization of poverty", or the ways in which women worldwide are also disproportionately affected by poverty. Both terms – "juvenilization" and "feminization" – have been contested in political and academic discourse.
context_section_description: Child poverty in the United States has fluctuated dramatically over time, usually in response to large-scale economic and political events. Estimates of juvenile poverty during the Great Depression judge that as many as 7 in 10 children, or 70% of all Americans under the age of 18, lived in poverty. The economic recovery afforded by World War II and post-war prosperity dramatically reduced both the number and percent of children living in impoverished homes.
  Until the early 1960s however, no official, formalized national attempt was made to measure a standard poverty rate. In 1963, however, analyst Mollie Orshansky, a Social Security Administration researcher, worked to develop an official poverty threshold to standardize poverty measures.
  Still used today, the Orshansky Poverty Threshold is an absolute measure of poverty that uses as its basis a "minimally adequate food budget" for families of varying sizes, estimating that food costs required approximately one-third of a family's after-tax budget. Thus a family (of three or more) fell below the poverty threshold if their after-tax income is less than three times the "minimally adequate food budget". Despite some changes to the formula, this measure remains at the center of the official measures of absolute poverty.
  Orshansky's calculations determined that in 1960 just under 30% of children lived in poverty. This rate continued to decline throughout the 1960s and 1970s due to a combination of economic growth, strong social welfare spending, and a robust labor market that increasingly included working mothers. Overall rates of child poverty reached a low in 1974 at, according to varying estimates, between 8-15%. However, in the last third of the 20th century child poverty rates among single parent (usually only a mother) and two-parent families began to surge.
  This generally positive history of child poverty in the first two thirds of the 20th century belies, however, the variability of poverty rates for different subpopulations of children. Juvenile poverty varied both geographically and by racial subgroups. Despite overall gains, children of color were far more likely than White children to live in poverty. Certain regions, especially the south and some urban centers, also experienced high rates of concentrated poverty.
  Many of the causes for the juvenilization of poverty follow highly racialized affect patterns, meaning children of color are far more likely to suffer from poverty, both in the United States and internationally. Suzanne Bianchi finds that "between 1960 and 1991, the proportion of children living in mother-only families increased from 8 percent to 26 percent. The rise among black children living in mother-only families was much more pronounced than for white children. By 1991, 54 percent of black compared with 17 percent of white children lived only with their mother" (Bianchi 1991).
  According to the most recent statistics from the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) at Columbia University, about 51 million children, or 21% of the juvenile population of the United States, live "in families with incomes below the federal poverty level – $22,050 a year for a family of four".
  The United States is one of the only nations that uses an absolute measure to determine poverty rates. In Europe and elsewhere best practices indicate that a relative measure of poverty is the best indicator of both proportional deprivation and comparable quality of life. Using a relative measure of poverty is considered a more accurate way of determining the economic stability of a group relative to both the general population and other comparable subpopulations. Using a relative measure to determine juvenile poverty rates requires setting a cutoff point – 60%, 50%, or 40% are standard measures – of average income, at which point a child or family is classified as poor. Relative measures of child poverty show that an even higher percentage of children in the US are impoverished, deepening the juvenilization of poverty.
  The NCCP also writes that "Research shows, on average, 
caption: Child Poverty Rates, by Race/Ethnicity 1959-2010
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