Children of Incarcerated Parents

History of The Term
IV. The Juvenilization of Poverty
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
(physical, mental, and psychological), and are
disproportionally 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
disproportionally affected by poverty. Both terms –
"juvenilization" and "feminization" – have been
contested in political and academic discourse.
In the 1980s scholars and practitioners in the fields of public administration, sociology,
and social work began noting a distressingly rapid rise in rates of juvenile poverty. This,
after several decades of falling child poverty rates, with a low of about 15% in 1974,
signaled to many a possible reversal in the gains made during the 1960s and 1970s for
children's wellness.
A central aspect of concern was that juvenile poverty was rising in two-parent and
single-parent mother homes, contrary to the perceived inherent stability of two-parent
families. A 1989 article by Mary Jo Bane and David Ellwood linked changes in the labor
market and declining male wages to rising child poverty trends, leading to further
investigations of the connections between work, family structures, social services
spending, and childhood welfare.
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