The intergenerational effect on poverty vulnerability among female-headed families

Longitudinal studies indicate a positive correlation between parents' and daughters' economic attainment, suggesting that poverty and welfare use are to some extent an intergenerational process, a vicious cycle. Such correlation implies that family background factors such as parents' socioeconomic status and/or welfare use history may have intergenerational effect on adult daughters' vulnerability to poverty. Two competing arguments, the socialization versus economic deprivation, have been put forth to explain the intergenerational effect on poverty vulnerability among female headed families. However, neither of them is accepted as an exclusive explanation for the issue.; This study develops a conceptual model that includes both explanations to examine the relative importance of two sets of factors in moderating the intergenerational effect on poverty vulnerability. To be specific, this study tests how attitudes (measured by self-esteem scale), human capital (measured on the basis of education), and financial assets (measured on the basis of savings and investments) moderate the effects of parents' socioeconomic status and welfare use on adult daughters' poverty buffer and welfare use. Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, 846 female headed households, including 293 black and 553 white families, are included in the analyses. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the hypotheses that embedded in the conceptual model.; Tests of the analyses suggest an intergenerational correlation of poverty vulnerability among female headed families. Lower parents' socioeconomic status is associated with their adult daughters' chances of living in income poverty. Parents' welfare use is also associated with their adult daughters' likelihood of participating in welfare. Through SEM, path analyses show that the revised path models fit the data better than the proposed path models. Such findings include: (1) economic deprivation factors such as human capital (education) and financial assets moderate the intergenerational effect on poverty buffer model and welfare use model; (2) socialization factors such as self esteem attitudes and human capital only moderate the association between parents' socioeconomic status and daughters' chances of living in income poverty, but not the intergenerational welfare use; (3) the effect of education attainment on assets and the effect of parents' welfare use on assets are consistently significant in intergenerational poverty buffer and in intergenerational welfare use; and (4) the dynamics of the revised model act differently by race only in the intergenerational welfare use but not in intergenerational poverty buffer. Implications for theory, methodology, and policy are discussed.