This study employed life course theory to investigate the academic achievement of youth in poverty to reflect the impact of unfortunate life events (such as demographic events and income events) on the ranking of the academic performance of youth in poverty, and to examine the effect contributed by the human agency of the youth during this process.

 

Path analysis was adopted to examine the theories and hypotheses in the causal model and to discuss the relationship of them. Three waves of data—2009, 2011, and 2013—were obtained from the Taiwan Database of Children and Youth in Poverty (TDCYP) for analysis.

 

Results are as follows. First, when the amount of income events happening to families in poverty increased, the youth’s satisfaction with the status quo decreased, whereas their expectations regarding future education increased. Second, stronger human agency of the youth in poverty, including high satisfaction toward the status quo in life, studying hard, and positive expectation toward future education, led to higher academic achievement. From the aforementioned observations, this study depicted the causal paths affecting the academic performance rankings of youth in poverty: income events inspired youth in poverty to have positive expectations regarding future education, and this positive impact improved the rankings of their later academic performance. However, income events simultaneously decreased the youth’s satisfaction concerning the status quo, and this negative impact had a lasting effect that worsened the rankings of their later academic performance.

 

The study was meaningful in that it verified that family income events tend to exacerbate the existing inequality, and such exacerbation was manifested on the academic achievement of youth in poverty. However, the human agency of the youth in poverty provides an opportunity to ameliorate this accumulated disadvantage.