DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR SHARES RESEARCH AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY

Distinguished Professor of Education Greg Duncan will deliver the Sidney Ball Lecture at University of Oxford on February 26. This title of his presentation is "Early Childhood Poverty and Later Attainment." Professor Duncan researches the economics of education, program evaluation, and child development.

"Professor Duncan has published extensively on issues of income distribution, child poverty and welfare dependence. He co-authored 'Higher Ground: New Hope for the Working Poor and Their Children' (2007) and co-edited 'For Better or For Worse: Welfare Reform and the Well-being of Children and Families' (2001), ‘Consequences of Growing up Poor’ (1997) and ‘Neighbourhood Poverty’ (1997). For many years he ran the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics and he continues to study neighbourhood effects on the development of children and adolescents and other issues involving welfare reform, income distribution and its consequences for children and adults." (University of Oxford, Department of Social Policy and Social Work)

Abstract

Most poor children achieve less, exhibit more problem behaviors and are less healthy than children reared in more affluent families. I look beyond correlations to recent studies that attempt to assess the causal impact of childhood poverty on later attainment. I pay particular attention to the potentially harmful effects of poverty early in childhood, and to links between early poverty and such adult outcomes as earnings, work hours, arrests and health status. Evidence suggests detrimental effects of early poverty on a number of attainment-related outcomes (adult earnings and work hours), some health outcomes (adult body mass) but not on such behavioral outcomes as out of wedlock childbearing and arrests.