This is a phenomenon used often by economic scientists. It simply means poverty begets poverty. It is a concept that illustrates how poverty causes poverty and traps people in poverty unless an external intervention is applied to break the cycle.
Lets look at this scenario with a family in absolute
poverty.
A very poor family with children have very little to eat, and have and access to health facilities. As a result, the children are malnourished and unhealthy and have many health complications. They are therefore unable to go to school (even if there is a school in the next village). They grow up with no education or skill and cannot do any economic activity. Their parent die from preventable diseases as a result of lack of health facilities, and their fate is in their hands. As the children turn adults, they find wives who are just on the same level of poverty as them, and they have their own children. They hand over this condition to their children, who will also grow up in similar conditions.
It takes an intervention from governments, charity
organizations or family members who are better off to step in and provide some
kind of assistance (health, feeding, shelter and basic education) to get the
youth to do some kind of economic activity to bring in some income. Without
that, this cycle will continue for generations and it’s a trap that is
extremely difficult to get out of.