Talia Emrani (Author), Alice Xu (Mentor)
Socioeconomic status (SES) is a person’s position in society based on their income, education, and occupation. Individuals, families, and communities with low SES often live in poverty, which is defined as lacking the essential resources to meet basic human needs, such as having adequate housing, nutrition, or healthcare. Poverty can influence various aspects of an individual’s lifelong wellbeing, such as cognitive function and academic outcomes (Luby et al., 2013; Taylor et al., 2020).
Poverty’s Interaction With Stress
One way that SES can affect brain development is through its interaction with stress. Luby et al. (2013) found that there was a negative association between exposure to stressful life events and hippocampal volume, which is associated with learning and memory. Furthermore, Morsy and Rothstein (2019) specifically looked at toxic stress, the repeated exposure to adverse experiences (e.g., violence and economic hardships). They discovered that toxic stress may accompany low SES due to the lack of basic resources to support healthy functioning.
There were several negative outcomes of children experiencing toxic stress, including physiological, cognitive, educational, social-emotional, and behavioral consequences. In terms of physiological outcomes, experiencing toxic stress for prolonged periods of time can hinder the development of important brain regions such as the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex, the latter in charge of higher order mental and executive tasks.
When an individual is continuously enduring high levels of stress, their body is persistently on high alert. Whereas a healthy body is typically able to regulate when and to which stimuli it reacts, a body experiencing toxic stress is constantly in a state of fight-or-flight, and becomes unable to regulate itself properly. This dysregulation of the stress response system can lead to cognitive and behavioral issues in school and other parts of life, such as problems with concentration, emotional regulation, and impulse control. With these skills underdeveloped, children may exhibit educational barriers such as struggling to pay attention in class and retain information. They may also face behavioral and social challenges, like using aggression with peers rather than healthier forms of communication.
With all of these issues being rooted in poverty, it is evident that children of lower SES may exhibit more severe deficits. The authors found that African American children experiencing poverty have a higher likelihood of enduring toxic stress in comparison with white children living in poverty. This may be due to increased racial discrimination and bias, as well as residential segregation in areas with less access to resources than white children living in poverty. Knowing this, it follows that there is an achievement gap between African American and white students (Morsey and Rothstein, 2019).
Poverty’s interaction with stress demonstrates how it may not directly impact the brain’s development, but rather how it interacts with the child’s environment. Poverty alone may not necessarily have a direct impact on structural changes in the brain, but can increase the likelihood that children are exposed to environmental factors that are detrimental to their development. These factors can include stress, as mentioned above, as well as the role a child’s caregiver plays in their lives.
The Role Of Caregiving
According to the literature review conducted by Blair and Raver (2016) as cited by Nguyen et al. (2020), there is a positive association between stress and unideal parenting practices. Ideal parenting styles are characterized by sensitivity and responsiveness to a child’s needs. This can look like answering a child’s cry, changing their diaper in time, or comforting them when they experience intense emotions. These caregiving practices are ideal because they model healthy relationships, teach the child that their needs are heard and will be met, and set them up to expect and contribute to healthy future relationships.
Luby et al. (2013) demonstrate that these high quality caregiving practices can be a mediating factor against the negative effect that poverty has on brain development. Specifically, when caregivers are less emotionally available, sensitive to their children’s needs, and responsive, which is often due to poverty-related stressors like financial strain or mental health challenges, children’s neurodevelopment is directly impaired. When parents have the resources to overcome challenges related to or stemming from poverty, they may gain increased access to other important resources such as adequate housing or healthcare. This may potentially shift their focus and ability from just trying to survive each day to providing more sensitive, responsive care for their children.
Luby et al. (2013) suggests that providing support to parents in low SES families may help their children’s brain development, as parental stress would decrease and parenting quality would therefore increase. Research by Nguyen et al. (2020) supports this: they found that parents of young children in deep poverty have the highest mean mental health score in comparison with parents of young children with other socioeconomic statuses, exhibiting their negative emotions and experiences. Parental mental health issues may be influenced by poverty, stress, and all of the related complications, often resulting in less ideal parenting practices. On the other hand, when parents have more time, more money, and less stress, they may be able to care for their children in a more present and sensitive way.
However, Luby et al. (2013) observed that poverty still had a significant direct effect on children’s brain development even after accounting for the effects of caregiving and stress. This hints that there are various additional aspects of poverty that may influence human development, emphasizing the need for holistic interventions that both support families directly and address broader policy and systemic concerns. While it may be easy to place the blame for unideal parenting practices on individual parents, this perspective overlooks broader systemic issues. Many parents are doing their best while struggling to meet their basic needs, and without adequate societal and systemic support, they are often left in survival mode rather than equipped to focus on improving their mental health or parenting strategies. This highlights the importance of financial and structural support for low SES families to enhance the developmental outcomes of their children, which points to a larger societal responsibility in fostering healthy environments for growth. Beyond the challenges within individual households, it is crucial to recognize the broader environments children grow up in, such as neighborhoods with high levels of poverty, which can independently shape their development and outcomes.
Neighborhood Poverty
This idea is supported by research from Taylor et al. (2020), which demonstrates that children living in high poverty neighborhoods often experience deficits in cognitive performance, specifically in language and memory tasks, as well as delays in brain development, particularly in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. This underdevelopment had visible ramifications: children living in high poverty neighborhoods had lower levels of performance on cognitive tasks, in areas like language, attention, and memory. The study proposed that these effects were mediated by the reduced development in some brain structures, suggesting that prolonged exposure to poverty may directly impact brain growth in areas critical for learning and functioning, directly contributing to cognitive difficulties.
Interestingly, even after accounting for household income, Taylor et al. (2020) observed that neighborhood poverty still predicted differences in brain development and cognitive performance. This suggests that the surrounding community, not just the family’s income, can independently impact a child’s development, reflecting broader community-level disadvantages that can influence lifelong outcomes. Therefore, addressing poverty at the community level may be key to fostering healthier developmental pathways and moving a step closer to closing the achievement gap.
Implementing Monetary Interventions Into Policy
Despite the prominent effects of poverty on the development of many children’s brains, there are policy interventions to protect against these negative effects. In the recent study conducted by Weissman et al. (2023), state-level monetary assistance programs have shown promising outcomes in acting as barriers for poverty’s negative effects. Even modest financial assistance, such as cash transfers and Medicaid expansion, can help.
Cash Assistance’s Buffer Against Low SES’s Negative Effects
In low SES households in states with high costs of living, more generous financial support from state-wide anti-poverty programs acted as a protective factor against these developmental deficits and negative lifelong trajectories. The disparities in hippocampal volume when low SES families in high cost of living states received financial support decreased by 34%. That means that despite the trend of families of low SES generally having more negative outcomes, financial assistance can stop these harmful effects and place individuals and families on a more positive trajectory. This may be because financial support can decrease the stress of those living in poverty (Nguyen et al., 2020). This, in turn, can benefit children’s cognitive and emotional development.
The Importance of Policy Change
The research conducted by Weissman et al. (2023) illustrates the importance of broader policy changes within the United States, as it clearly demonstrates the positive impacts that state-level or federal-level financial assistance can make on the neurodevelopment of those living in poverty. It offers insight into the way that structural and systemic interventions can act as barriers against harmful effects of poverty cycles. Using these findings, policymakers should further consider the broader economic and social environment when addressing early child development, mental health and achievement disparities, and poverty in general.
Weissman et al. (2023) uniquely shows the link between developmental concepts and policy, unveiling the systemic factors that affect development. It provides concrete evidence that economic disparities often lead to unequal developmental outcomes, reinforcing the need for policymakers to address early childhood policy with the understanding that investing in children is investing in a richer, healthier, and more successful future. Heckman (2008)’s research on early investment demonstrates that in order to cultivate lasting success and productivity for individuals, policymakers must invest in children’s earliest years, even beginning prenatally. Specifically, investing in high quality, enriching programs from the ages of 0-5 years old can yield returns of 13% each year. This equates to a return of $4-$16 for every $1 initially invested, with the return growing in size the earlier the investments begin. This goes to show that pouring resources into supporting our children, whose brains are vulnerable and malleable, can provide lifelong positive outcomes. The importance of expanding ground-level and policy interventions and resources for early care is imminent.
Conclusions
The cycle of poverty seems to be self-perpetuating without intervention, in which its effects depress brain development and therefore hinder academic and professional achievement, which may result in the continuation of living in poverty, and so on and so forth. Supporting families by reducing poverty’s effects may prevent negative effects from ensuing by fostering a healthier environment for children to grow up in. If development is enriched and supported, children can succeed in their future and later provide their own children with healthier environments, disrupting the cycle of poverty and the generational effects it has on families.
The interventions mentioned may not only support short-term increases in brain and behavioral development, but can also increase the likelihood of better lifelong trajectories. Although research has demonstrated specific policy changes that can help with addressing disparities in early childhood, widespread change also requires societal willingness and dedication to empowering families. With the knowledge of the research mentioned throughout this paper, we have taken the first step towards promoting lifelong success for those of all socioeconomic statuses. Now, it is time to take action to promote equal opportunities for all children and families, regardless of their positions in society.
References
Ekono, M., Yang, J., & Smith, S. (2016). Young Children in Deep Poverty. New York: National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
Luby, J., Belden, A., Botteron, K., Marrus, N., Harms, M. P., Babb, C., Nishino, T., & Barch, D. (2013). The effects of poverty on childhood brain development. JAMA Pediatrics, 167(12), 1135. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.3139
Morsy, L., & Rothstein, R. (2019, May 1). Toxic stress and children’s outcomes: African American children growing up poor are at greater risk of disrupted physiological functioning and depressed academic achievement (Technical report). Economic Policy Institute.
Nguyen, U.S., Smith, S., Granja, M.R. (2020). Young Children in Deep Poverty: Racial/Ethnic Disparities and Child Well-Being Compared to Other Income Groups. New York: National Center for Children in Poverty, Bank Street Graduate School of Education.
Taylor, R. L., Cooper, S. R., Jackson, J. J., & Barch, D. M. (2020). Assessment of neighborhood poverty, cognitive function, and prefrontal and hippocampal volumes in children. JAMA Network Open, 3(11). https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.23774
Weissman, D. G., Hatzenbuehler, M. L., Cikara, M., Barch, D. M., & McLaughlin, K. A. (2023a). State-level macro-economic factors moderate the association of low income with brain structure and mental health in U.S. children. Nature Communications, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37778-1