Linking Child Poverty and Child Outcomes: Exploring Data and Research Strategies. Research Working Paper.

This paper reviews research on processes linking low incomes, deprived neighborhoods, and adverse outcomes for British children, identifying gaps and limitations in existing datasets and research strategies. Four domains are examined: education, health and psychological outcomes, crime and related behavior, and items linked to transitioning to adult life (e.g., unemployment, homelessness, and early family formation). The paper describes the basic model, which identifies household resources, particularly income, and distinguishes between transmissions and processes broadly within the family and individual sphere. It then examines possible data requirements and mechanisms in more detail, evaluating how far the available data sources include the appropriate data. After discussing neighborhood effects and data on service quality, the paper explores the technical questions of data linkage and ethical and legal constraints. It concludes that there is not one study that encompasses all that would be needed to chart and explain the relationship between poverty in childhood and the major outcomes in the short and medium term, though with the increasing sophistication of research measurement, studies demonstrate state-of-the-art data collection. Recommendations for future research are noted. Three appendices present information on modeling individual effects, the dataset, and modeling neighborhood effects. (Contains 67 references.) (SM)