the US, making up almost one-third of all people living in poverty in the country. Child poverty rate by country Causes There are many theories about what causes childhood poverty. The majority of poverty-stricken children are born to poor parents. Therefore, the causes of adult poverty including government policies, lack of education, unemployment, social services, disabilities and discrimination significantly affect the presence of child poverty. Lack of parental economic resources such as disposable income restricts children's opportunities. Economic and demographic factors such as deindustrialization, globalization, residential segregation, labor market segmentation, and migration of middle-class residents from inner cities, constrain economic opportunities and choices across generation, isolating inner city poor children. The decline of the nuclear family, illegitimacy, teen pregnancy, and increased numbers of single mothers, is also cited as a major cause of poverty and welfare dependency for women and their children. Children resulting from unintended pregnancies are more likely to live in poverty; raising a child requires significant resources, so each additional child increases demands on parental resources. Families raised by a single parent are generally poorer than those raised by couples. In the United States, 6 of 10 long term poor children have spent time in single-parent families and in 2007, children living in households headed by single mothers were five times as likely as children living in households headed by married parents to be living in poverty. Many of the apparent negative associations between growing up poor and children's attainments reflect unmeasured parental advantages that positively affect both parents’ incomes and children's attainments, like parental depression. Behavioral theories It's been theorized that a great deal of childhood poverty is caused by choices, incentives, and the cultural beliefs of their parents. For example, factors like single motherhood, low education, and especially unemployment are associated with poverty. There has been extensive research on which incentives shape behavior to produce less poverty. The effects of poverty such as cognitive burden, bias, and stress are known to encourage behavior that perpetuates poverty, for example by reducing educational attainment or not investing in insurance. There is strong evidence that growing up in poverty feeds back into behavior that increases the chance of poverty for the next generation. Some attribute these tendencies to culture or problematic incentives, though the relationship between poverty and behaviors is not well-established. For example, single motherhood is associated with childhood poverty, especially in developing countries. However, in 19