Generally, young people from ethnic minorities are disadvantaged in the society. There has been an increasing proportion of minority youth in the United States given the fact that it is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world. It is estimated that by 2020, half of the young population will be members of the ethnic and racial minority groups. The technological advances, immigration trends, and increasing global economic and social independence have contributed to the growing diversity as well as the challenges facing the minority youth. The life prospects of minority youths present a significant policy challenge for the United States. Youths from poverty stricken households face a series of barriers to success that may have negative implications both today and in the future. Some of the problems facing the minority youth living in poverty in the United States include but not limited to poor educational opportunities, poor healthcare, high crime environments, and family dysfunction. Therefore, the challenges faced by minority youth experiencing poverty are responsible for their relatively low annual income as adults.
Lack of Access to Quality Education
Lack of access to quality education among minority youth experiencing poverty is a major challenge that significantly affects annual household income as an adult. The pervasive racial and ethnic disparities in education achievement among African Americans, Latinos, American Indians as well as Southeast Asians are a cause for serious concern among policy makers. Such communities underperform academically relative to Whites and other Asian communities. This is a significant problem for several reasons. One of such reasons is that majority of the United States population will comprise people of color by the middle of this century. Therefore, more of the ethnic and racial minority youth should achieve higher levels of education in order to ensure that the country cultivates the human talent that is essential to the economic success of the nation. This means that the minority youths should be able to generate enough income as adults in order to contribute positively to the nation’s economic growth. For the citizens, education is an important strategy for the ability to make contributions to one’s community as well as the nation. Therefore, it is important for individuals to ensure that they obtain as much education as possible. The general pattern of educational disparities is similar across these ethnic and racial minority groups. Moreover, the disparities are accentuated in some particular areas in each minority ethnic and racial groups. The Latinos have a relatively large representation of immigrants or children of immigrants whose native language is not English. The African Americans are characterized by a large discipline gap with the disproportionately significant number receiving behavioral sanctions in schools.
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Most of the youth from minority ethnic and racial communities are from poor backgrounds in the society (Berliner, 2013). The early childhood education programs attended by children from minority ethnic and racial communities are typically of poor quality compared to the programs that more affluent families use. Therefore, it is clear that minority youth have access to low-quality education right from childhood. This reduces their opportunities for success in the future as they may fail to complete their studies because of various reasons including poverty.
The Latino youths experiencing poverty face a lot of challenges in the American education system. This is because they form a greater percentage of English learners. Because their parents may not afford to pay for more quality language training, they may end up performing badly in school. Because the Latino students may not understand the English language like their White counterparts, they may not be able to achieve more in their studies. The students whose native language is English have high rates of academic achievement compared to Latino students who receive less instruction in their native language. Research demonstrates that there are long-term benefits associated with instructing students in their native language. Therefore, policy decisions regarding quality bilingual programs can help in significantly closing the gaps between language minority and majority students.
The impact of poverty on the academic achievement of minority youth is significant given the social, economic and educational context in which such schools are situated. The high levels of deprivation experienced by the minority youth affect their levels of academic achievement. Most importantly, the areas with the highest proportion of young people with no qualifications tend to have the fewest teachers available for the schools in the locality. On the contrary, the areas with a higher proportion of qualified young people have many adults who have academic qualifications hence more teachers available for the schools in the same locality (Ward, 2006). Lack of enough teachers means that the quality of education is lower. Generally, most of the minority youths hail from poor families living in areas where there are few people with academic qualifications. The schools located in poor neighborhoods, therefore, lack enough teachers necessary for improving the quality of education in such localities. The high levels of deprivation and low quality of schools that characterize poor neighborhoods explain the poor academic performance of the youth in such areas. Poor academic performance limits the opportunities for employment among the minority youth. As a result, their annual income as adults will be relatively low compared to those of the majority population.
The leaders across the political spectrum have championed measures such as increased testing and results-based evaluation of teachers as well as school districts. As much as such reforms are a hot topic, one of the most pervasive problems affecting public schools is rarely discussed. The policymakers have failed to take a serious look at how poverty affects education, particularly among minority youth. The minority youth experiencing poverty are basically disadvantaged even before birth. Basically, an individual’s cognitive capacity is not entirely a matter of genetics, but can also be influenced by external factors such as environmental toxins, prenatal drug use, poor nutrition as well as exposure to violence and stress. All these factors are prevalent in low-income households. Therefore, the minority youth from poor households may be disadvantaged significantly in relation to academic performance. The external factors inherent in poverty stricken households affect the cognitive development right from the prenatal stage to adulthood. The effects of such factors on the cognitive development of minority youth may significantly affect annual household income in adulthood.
The minority youth from poor households have less verbal exposure (Hoff, 2013). This may significantly affect their academic performance in schools. Research also shows that minority youth from poor backgrounds have poor conversation quality. Parents with education and income are more likely to engage their children with questions and dialogue that invite creative responses. On the contrary, parents in poverty often lack the time and energy for anything more than simple commands that are goal oriented. Poor sense of agency is another factor that influences the academic performance of minority youth. As they grow up in poverty, they often experience life as a series of volatile situations that, neither they nor their caregivers have any control. As such, the minority youth living in poverty fail to develop a conception of themselves as free individuals capable of making independent choices and acting on them to shape their lives. They instead react to crises that are only magnified by their poor ability either plan ahead or reflect. Poor sense of agency not only affects educational success but also has major health impacts in all areas.
Youths from ethnically and racially minority communities, particularly African-Americans and Latinos may have low executive function skills such as emotional regulation, impulse control, attention management, working memory and prioritization of tasks. The daily insecurities of life in poverty interfere with the executive function skills by releasing hormones that direct energy away from them towards more basic survival mechanisms. Therefore, regular exposure to such stresses in childhood can inhibit the early development of the neural connections that facilitate executive function. This leaves the affected individuals with both academic and behavioral problems. This influences their annual household income in adulthood.
The current environment is more demanding as it is characterized by intense competition for an employment opportunity. In the past, well-paid unskilled jobs were available creating a virtual cycle that enables families to enter the middle class within a generation. This is because the uneducated factory workers were able to raise stable families and send their children to college. However, the current knowledge-based economy has made it complex to move out of poverty. As a result, attaining economic independence require more education, interpersonal skills and planning due to the competition for unskilled work as well as a minimum wage that has not kept up with inflation in the economy. As such, the low-income individuals are disadvantaged in the society. Therefore, the minority youth from such disadvantaged households may not be able to get the required education that can help them secure employment opportunities. Consequently, their annual household income as adults will be negatively affected. They will not be able to get well-paying jobs that will improve their economic status.
The policy makers in the education sector make misleading comparisons regarding education in the United States. Apparently, the education reformers normally point to the disparity in grades and test scores between the United States and other industrialized countries as an indicator that differences in education approaches are a deciding factor. However, the truth is that America children of affluent families perform as well as their foreign peers. The poverty rate is high than in many other wealthy nations is the main factor that drags down the United States average. Additionally, poverty is more firmly entrenched in minority ethnic and racial communities, particularly the African Americans and Latinos. Therefore, the poverty levels in the among minority communities influence the economic future of the minority youth.
Teenage Pregnancies among Minority Youth
Teenage pregnancies among minority youths from low-income families significantly influence their annual household income as adults. Disparities by race and ethnicity contribute to the number of teenage pregnancies among minority youth (Basch, 2011). Teenage pregnancies deny the affected girls the opportunity to continue their education. Additionally, the burden of raising children compounds the problem. The most affected minority youths are Hispanic, and African Americans. Racial, ethnic, geographic and socio-economic disparities serve to exacerbate the problem.
The socio-economic conditions in the environments where minority youth live contribute to high teen birth rates. The low income and low education levels of the minority youth families contribute significantly to teenage pregnancy. The parents may lack the resources and skills to effectively guide their children leading to irresponsible behaviors among the youth. Adults also take advantage of the poverty that teenage girls live in and lure them into unprotected sex. This results in high rates of teen births, especially in poor localities. Additionally, the parents may lack the money to engage the girls in vocational training programs that may provide them with skills that will enable them to earn a living. Few opportunities for positive youth involvement may encourage irresponsible behaviors that ultimately lead to teenage pregnancy. Furthermore, teens in child welfare systems are at a greater risk of teen pregnancy and birth than other groups. For instance, the young women living in foster care are more than twice as likely to become pregnant that those that are not in foster care. Lack of efforts that focus on the social determinants of health in teen pregnancy prevention efforts contributes to the increase in racial, ethnic, geographic and socioeconomic disparities observed in teen pregnancies in the United States of America.
The girls of color are a greater risk of teenage pregnancy in the United States. Teenage pregnancies affect the economic future of minority youths hence influencing their annual household income as adults. This is because teenage pregnancies affect their education. Lack of enough education means lack of the necessary skills to effectively compete in the job market. The girls affected by teenage pregnancies are more likely to live in poverty for a significant part of their lives due to lack of opportunities for personal development. Another problem may arise from rejection by family members. The stresses associated with rejection normally push them to prostitution hence exposing them to the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS. It is, therefore, necessary to take effective measures that will effectively address the challenge of teenage pregnancy among minority youths of culture. As such, poverty plays a significant role in high teen birth rates. Moreover, education and access to contraceptives are instrumental in addressing teen pregnancy rates than do religious and cultural differences. It is also worth pointing out that teens of color from poor households are less likely to have access to quality healthcare and contraceptive services. The neighborhoods where teens of color live are often characterized by scarcity of jobs and opportunities for advancement. Additionally, many teen girls who are sexually active are exploited by older men who lure them with money. Most of the underprivileged girls from minority communities such as African Americans and Latinos face peer pressure to have sex early. Unfortunately, teen pregnancy has been observed as often cyclical as a lot of teens having kids are the kids of teen parents themselves. Research shows that, the daughters of teen mothers are three times more likely to become teen mothers themselves. Therefore, the environment surrounding the poor neighborhoods of minority youth contribute significantly to the rates of teen births. It is important to realize that teenage pregnancy contributes to low annual household income among minority youth in adulthood.
Lack of Access to Mental Health
Generally, the proportion of minority youth in the United States has grown significantly. The continued growth of the minority child population has contributed to a significant shift toward a population that is radically changing in terms of racial and ethnic composition. Racial and ethnic disparities in mental health service access and treatment have persisted despite such an increasing diversity (Santiago et al., 2013). Research shows that racial and ethnic minority youth are one-third as likely to receive mental health services as their white counterparts despite the comparable rates of behavioral and emotional disturbances across the ethnic and racial divides. It is estimated that 7 percent of minority youth receive mental health services compared to 20 percent of white youth.
Minority youth are exposed to socio-emotional problems at an early age due to the environmental conditions surrounding their upbringing as well as the challenges of poverty. Therefore, failure to participate in treatment for mental health issues may have significant long-term consequences on the affected minority youth (Cummings et al., 2013). Lack of adequate treatment may contribute to problematic behaviors later in life such as anxiety, increased depression, engagement with deviant peers, poor academic performance, involvement with violent crime, school dropout, unsafe sex, drug and alcohol abuse and unemployment. The impact and severity of the poor prognosis of children with untreated mental health problems present a larger concern among ethnic minority households. The minority households not only face the common challenges of raising children but also the socio-political influences of such as minority status, discrimination, acculturation, and poverty (Spano & Bolland, 2013). Therefore, the ethnic minority youth are at a greater risk of mental health due to the socioeconomic stressors such as prejudice, racism, under-education, poverty and acculturation.
African Americans and Hispanics face significant challenges in terms of accessing mental health treatment. Therefore, the severe consequences of a poor prognosis may affect their future economic status.
Social Exclusion
Generally, minority youth from poorer families leave school with substantially lower levels of education attainment. Such attainment gaps among the minority youth experiencing poverty are a major contributing factor towards patterns of social mobility. As a result, the minority youth are more likely to end up with higher unemployment, and more reliance on benefits compare to other youths from privileged backgrounds. Therefore, the minority youths may suffer from a lack of opportunities and role models. This may be partly because of lack of networking opportunities as a result of apparent social exclusion. Marginalization and poverty can stunt the ability of the minority youths to explore, learn and grow. It is important to realize that being able to socialize with others through shared consumption such going out, sports and other social activities require money. Because of the adverse effects of poverty on minority youth, they can be led into a negative spiral of social exclusion.
The neighborhoods of the minority youths may have a negative impact on the youth. This may be as a result of too much internal interaction in socioeconomically homogenous settings that may socially isolate minority youths. Socioeconomically homogenous neighborhoods may significantly limit information networks and further accentuate the pernicious consequences of poverty. This may increase the number of poor and socially excluded minority youth living in poor households.
Furthermore, the social exclusion and isolation among minority youth may lead to drug and substance abuse. This is because there is a close link between drug use and deprivation (Evans & Kim, 2013). Drug dependence among the minority youths limits their capacity to generate income. As such, their annual household income as an adult will be significantly low. The families may be compelled to spend a lot of money on their treatment hence aggravating the level of poverty in their households. Furthermore, the minority youth may miss out on educational opportunities leading to unemployment. Consequently, the annual household income as an adult will be negatively affected.
In conclusion, it is demonstrable that minority youths experiencing poverty face significant challenges that influence their annual household income as adults. The minority youths have to grapple with challenges to do with lack of access to quality education, teenage pregnancies, social exclusion, and lack of access to mental healthcare services among others. Such factors significantly influence their present and future economic status in the society. Therefore, the challenges facing minority youth present significant policy implications to the government. Necessary measures need to be taken to alleviate the suffering of minority youth in terms of income generation.
References
Basch, C. E. (2011). Teen pregnancy and the achievement gap among urban minority youth. Journal of School Health , 81 (10), 614-618.
Berliner, D. (2013). Effects of inequality and poverty vs. teachers and schooling on America’s youth. Teachers College Record , 115 (12), 1-26.
Cummings, J. R., Wen, H., & Druss, B. G. (2013). Improving access to mental health services for youth in the United States. JAMA , 309 (6), 553-554.
Evans, G. W., & Kim, P. (2013). Childhood poverty, chronic stress, self‐regulation, and coping. Child Development Perspectives , 7 (1), 43-48.
Hoff, E. (2013). Interpreting the early language trajectories of children from low-SES and language minority homes: Implications for closing achievement gaps. Developmental psychology , 49 (1), 4.
Santiago, C. D., Kaltman, S., & Miranda, J. (2013). Poverty and Mental Health: How Do Low‐Income Adults and Children Fare in Psychotherapy?. Journal of Clinical Psychology , 69 (2), 115-126.
Spano, R., & Bolland, J. (2013). Disentangling the effects of violent victimization, violent behavior, and gun carrying for minority inner-city youth living in extreme poverty. Crime & Delinquency , 59 (2), 191-213.
Ward, N. L. (2006). Improving equity and access for low-income and minority youth into institutions of higher education. Urban Education , 41 (1), 50-70.
