The Development of Socioeconomic Cognition in Childhood

Economic inequality is a pressing social issue affecting children's development. Children are not simply passive recipients of outcomes associated with their family's socioeconomic status; rather, children begin to build a map of socioeconomic concepts early in life—reasoning about what money is, its role in their own and others’ lives, and why some people have more of it than others. This article draws from disparate social science disciplines to articulate a cognitive development framework for understanding children's socioeconomic reasoning across four domains ranging from concrete to abstract: ( a ) reasoning about money as currency, ( b ) reasoning about money as wealth held by people, ( c ) reasoning about wealth as an aspect of a person's identity, and ( d ) reasoning about wealth as a source of societal-level inequality. Across domains, we synthesize existing research, summarize common themes across fields, and highlight pressing questions to provide a roadmap for the continued study of children's socioeconomic cognition.