The impact of conflict on the intergenerational transmission of chronic poverty: an overview and annotated bibliography

This overview and annotated bibliography reviews the multi-disciplinary literature on the impact of conflict on intergenerational transmission (IGT) of chronic poverty.

It addresses the following issues:

• the mechanisms by which conflict causes poverty
• the duration of the resulting poverty
• the likelihood that poverty will be transmitted from one generation to another
• the types of conflicts that generate poverty
• the households and individuals most affected by conflict-related poverty.

The authors conclude that it is likely that conflict is a contributory factor in the intergenerational transmission of chronic poverty, primarily because it can irreversibly disrupt the provision of basic goods and services like food, healthcare and education at vulnerable moments in the life-course of individuals. The authors note that this conclusion rests on the assumption that conflict is an external shock on non-poor households, and is therefore a driver of transitory poverty, which over time can become chronic poverty, transmitted intergenerationally.

The authors recommend maintaining both the livelihoods framework and the case study approach and a longitudinal research design to collect data prospectively and/or retrospectively considering the already available data, the budget, the ability to track individuals over time and the feasibility of combining different methods.

This report is from CPRC Working Paper 71and CPRC Annotated Bibliography 4.