Poverty And Education In Latin America

This is a two-dimensional matter: poor people are always unable to access adequate education and people with low education attainment always end up in poverty. The poverty-education pattern through the years shows clearly that people with high levels of education show a high probability of getting employment with high earnings. Londono (1996) explains how little education makes Latin America’s economic growth lag, leading to high levels of inequality and poverty. For him high education attainment can help reduce poverty. However, other studies are not buying the same sentiments, Filmer et al makes remarks that the quantity of education exhibit a weak relationship with economic growth contrary to the common believe that education fosters economic development. Servaas’ research on poverty and education shows evidence that investing more in secondary education contributes to greater benefits than on primary levels of education as previously shown by studies.

Relative poverty influences the developed countries. Although they have access to financial resources and can easily access schools, they face social and economic exclusion in their communities. Their learning process is of poor quality and with time they start to register high

rates of discontinuation.
Some researchers have documented that SES contains little influence on education compared to family characteristics (Karl White). According to his research, SES accounts for less than five percent of the disparities that exist in education.

Children and Literacy.
Children living in poverty possess little or no access to books and other learning materials implying that they have fewer opportunities to read and therefore make little progress in education attainment (4).

From past studies, researchers associate better outcomes in education with higher levels of income (Phipps and Lethbridge). Low income potentially causes many different negative outcomes. Poverty elevates the level of stress to in children, affects their cognitive functioning, deprives them of enthusiasm and hope, affects their behavior and general performance in academics. A human resource Canadian study focusing on school dropouts reported that children from low income households were more likely to leave schooling without

graduating.
Economic inequality and Education attainment.
A research done by Campbell et al investigating the effects of increase in income inequality on education attainment and if the disparity exists in unequal environments found out that a higher proportion of students do not complete high school or 11th grade. Also, increasing economic inequality leads to a higher schooling for whites and little or no change for black population. The number of black children dropping out of school increased for the ages below 11 by about 13 percent.

Study area.

A report released by the New York State Community Action Association in 2017 revealed that Broome county has 26% of children and 5% of Seniors (65 years+) below the poverty line. This average is approximately 10% higher than the state’s rate and about 20% higher than that of the whole country. The report also showed that about 45.3% of African American lived in poverty followed by Hispanic/Latino at 43.5% compared to the white population which had 14.9%. The report also showed that 31.3% of people living in poverty had no degree, 15.1% in poverty had only completed high school compared to only 3.5% who had a Bachelor’s degree or higher.

Methods.
I obtained poverty status data from the US Census bureau, ACS along with data on variables such as education attainment, households receiving food stamps, occupation, race, school enrollment. For education attainment I picked three different attainment levels, that is, high school graduate, the number of students who attended some college or attained associate degree, and those who attained graduate degree. To measure poverty, I used income, which many researchers use to determine SES. Also, I derived Gini index, a measure of wealth distribution from the NHGIS website and made a map to display the pattern. The GINI index of wealth distribution measures economic inequality. Zero represents perfect equality while one represents perfect inequality. Values over 1 imply negative income or wealth. Then, I obtained some summary statistics from the New York State department of health, showing the percentage of children/students ranging from those who did not complete high school to those who completed graduate degree. The pattern in Broome county was compared to that of the state and the country. To do comparison across different racial/ethnic groups, I obtained data from IPUMS website and used SPSS to make a summary table that shows the comparison of education attainment and median household income across the different groups.
Then I used ArcMap, a GIS tool to make maps for further analysis.
To predict how poverty, income and food stamps affect education, I use regression model. Since the US Census bureau uses median household income to determine poverty level, I use a single variable model to avoid the problem of multicollinearity. Also, I perform correlation to determine which variables contain an association before using them in the regression model. I use different levels of education attainment to monitor which level is most affected by poverty status. Finally I use ANOVA to test for significance of the variables.
Findings:
Income and Education attainment.
From the summary statistics that I obtained from the state of New York, department of health, most students completed high school but a few proceeded to college, the number reduced significantly as the students approached graduate degree level. Broome county had a higher percentage (approximately 34.56%) compared to 26.52% for the state and 27.74% for the whole country. However, this percentage declined rapidly to about 12.13% for those who completed Bachelor’s degree, compared to approximately 19% for the state and the nation. Finally, those who completed graduate degree were 8.5% in Broome, compared to about 10.27% in the state. For education attainment, Colesville and Sanford tract displayed the highest percentage (approximately 61-90.8%)in high school graduate level. Tracts such as Barker, Nanticoke, Windsor, had between 53.1-60% of its population while Binghamton metropolitan area displayed the least level which was ranging from1-25%. For college or associate degree attainment level, Chenango, Union and part of Binghamton metropolitan area had the highest attainment (61-90.8%), Colesville, Fenton, Barker and Nanticoke displayed the least attainment. Finally, for Graduate degree attainment, Vestal, Binghamton and Union had the largest percentage. Other tracts such as Maine and Chenango had a population ranging between 41.1-53%. Lisle, Nanticoke, and Sanford had the least attainment.