Childhood Poverty and Cognitive Development in Latin America in the 21st Century

Abstract

For at least eight decades, many studies have analyzed the association between childhood poverty and cognitive development in different societies worldwide, few of which have been carried out in Latin America. The aim of the present paper is to systematically review the empirical studies that have analyzed the associations between poverty and cognitive development in children under 18 years of age from Latin American and Caribbean countries between the years 2000 and 2015. This analysis takes into consideration the country where the work was conducted, the design of the study and its analytical design, sample size and composition, cognitive and poverty paradigms implemented, levels of analysis considered, and the inclusion of mediation analyses. Our findings have allowed the identification of common patterns in the negative impact of poverty that had been repeatedly verified in the literature in other continents, and, at the same time, they call attention to a set of issues regarding sample, design, paradigms, impact, and mediation analyses that should be considered in future studies in the region.