Spatio-Temporal Dimensions of Child Poverty in America, 1990-2010

Maia Call, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Paul R. Voss, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The persistence of childhood poverty in the United States, a wealthy and developed country, continues to pose both an analytical dilemma and public policy challenge, despite decades of research and remedial policy implementation. In this paper, we attempt to examine the relationship between space, time, and previously established factors correlated with childhood poverty as well as to provide a case study demonstrating an underutilized methodological approach. We analyze a dataset built from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Censuses, and the 2006-2010 American Community Survey. Our analytic approach includes cross-sectional spatial models, a fixed effects panel data model, and a full space-time interaction model, which adjusts for spatial and temporal variation in these data. These models reinforce our understanding of the strong regional persistence of childhood poverty in the U.S. over time and suggest that the factors impacting childhood poverty remain much the same today as they have in past decades.