IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jpamgt/v4y1984i4p516-536.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Myth and reality: The causes and persistence of poverty

Author

Listed:
  • Mary Corcoran
  • Greg Duncan
  • Gerald Gurin
  • Patricia Gurin

Abstract

Policies directed at alleviating poverty rest on a set of assumptions regarding the demographic composition of the poor and the psychological dispositions of poor individuals. Evidence from a long-term study of a representative sample of low-income individuals shows that poverty is very widespread but not usually very persistent, and that the characteristics of the persistently poor do not conform to the conventional wisdom. Furthermore, the economic status of the poor does not appear to have been caused by psychological dispositions. Intergenerational data from the same study show generally weak links between the poverty or welfare status of parents and that of their children. Public policies for dealing with poverty can be properly devised without attempting to resocialize poor people and without undue concern that poverty programs will generate dependency among the majority of those they help.

Suggested Citation

  • Mary Corcoran & Greg Duncan & Gerald Gurin & Patricia Gurin, 1984. "Myth and reality: The causes and persistence of poverty," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(4), pages 516-536.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:4:y:1984:i:4:p:516-536
    DOI: 10.2307/3323752
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2307/3323752
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2307/3323752?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:4:y:1984:i:4:p:516-536. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/34787/home .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.