Childhood Poverty Duration and Its Long-Term Effects on Income and Education in China: A Survival Analysis Based on CHNS Data

Childhood poverty is a widespread and persistent social issue that jeopardizes not only the survival and development of children, but also their future prospects. The timing of childhood poverty refers to the occurrence of poverty at different phases of a child’s life course, which has distinct effects on a child’s physical and mental health, cognitive ability, educational attainment and income level. This paper analyzes the longitudinal data of China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) to select sample consists of individuals born between 1989 and 1991, with childhood poverty duration of 22 years from 1989 to 2011, and tracks their complete growth cycle into young adulthood to synthesize the 1989–2011 panel data. The childhood poverty period is categorized into three stages, which are 0–4 years old, 5–10 years old, and 11–16 years old, according to the recurrent event data approach, based on which the impact of childhood poverty timing on income and educational achievement in adulthood is analyzed. Three main findings are emerged: (1) Experiencing poverty in childhood adversely affects one’s income and education levels in later life; (2) the negative effects of poverty are more pronounced when experienced in early childhood than in later childhood; (3) early poverty has a more detrimental impact on girls than on boys. The paper further explores the potential mechanisms by which malnutrition and early protein intake as a timing of childhood poverty affect income and educational attainment in adulthood. Mechanistic tests illustrate that malnutrition and lower early protein intake are associated with lower income and lower educational attainment in adulthood. In addition, this paper also examines how the impact of childhood poverty on adult income varies with different poverty thresholds and birth order controls. Results show that childhood poverty significantly reduces adult income irrespective of the choice of absolute or relative poverty measures and the inclusion of sibling effects.