Examining the Effect of Age at First Birth and Educational Attainment on Household Poverty Status in the United States with a Chi-Square Analysis

Understanding poverty as a state of being poor with regard to concretely being unable to meet basic needs such as water, food, clothes, shelter, and essential services (e.g., sanitation, health, and education), in the United States, its concerted study not only stands in tandem with U.S. American values such as equality but is crucial for soundly informing and assessing law, policy, and programs that ensure a robust society. Especially amidst a global pandemic like COVID-19, it becomes all the more important to understand what factors may impact a person’s movement into and out of poverty. Using data from a nationally representative panel study sponsored by the U.S. Census Bureau, I examined how educational attainment may interact with age at first birth to jointly affect household poverty status in the United States with a chi-square analysis. Age at first birth was found to have a statistically significant effect on household poverty status, however, educational attainment was found to weaken the effect to a substantive and statistically significant degree (p<0.001). After controlling for education, the relationship between age at first birth and household poverty status weakened from moderate to weak and weak-to-moderate (i.e., from an 18.7 percentage point difference to a 6.8 percentage point difference and 10.4 percentage point difference). These results illustrate the importance of education while reminding of how complex a concept like poverty truly is. Further research may explore the nuances of other factors (e.g., family background, demographic characteristics) to see what patterns align most with movement into and out of poverty.