Child Poverty - Helen Wareham

The number of children experiencing material deprivation (1), lack of food, and housing instability in the UK is increasing, but they don’t necessarily think of themselves as being in poverty.

This was one of the key messages that came out of the recent North East Child Poverty Commission conference (https://www.nechildpoverty.org.uk/news/regional-conference-to-put-child-poverty-back-on-the-agenda). Children and young people are growing up in poverty and don’t know any different because of the high prevalence in their communities. Around 4.1 million children in the UK are living in poverty, in some areas of the North East of England it’s more than 1 in 3 children (2).

In 2000 the UK government pledged to end child poverty by 2020. While we saw initial progress in the early millennium, with the UK on target to make significant reductions in child poverty, the global recession, change in government, policy decisions, and long-standing austerity measures have contributed to that progress being reversed and we are now seeing rising child poverty across the UK (3,4,5,6).

Worries around the pervasiveness of bad policy decisions, the lack of compassion, sense of responsibility and urgency by those in power is felt by many. As part of this there was also concern regarding the tendency to simplify issues by fragmenting them (separating poverty into specific types, i.e. fuel poverty, in-work poverty etc.) rather than treating child poverty as the complex whole that it is.

For a project like SEED child poverty is a key component of the wider social inequalities we are investigating. In national longitudinal surveys we utilise, such as the Millennium Cohort Study, by age 11 more than half the children included in the study had lived in income poverty (less than 60% of median income) in at least one data collection wave (7). Definitions and measures of poverty can be varied and difficult to agree a clear consensus, not just in research but more broadly. However, there is little disagreement in the evidence that whatever the measure (income, employment, material deprivation) that a lack or low level of these things has an adverse effect on children.

Child poverty can be a difficult and frustrating topic, as to tackle it requires co-ordinated, committed, and sustained action by multiple government departments, something that can be difficult to achieve in any organisation but not impossible. This was one of the closing messages of the day, it’s not an impossible problem, previous policies and action have resulted in the reduction of child poverty, we’ve seen what works.

While child poverty may not be as near to the top of government agendas as we would like, poverty and inequality are an important concern among people. Many of the other important and pressing societal issues are closely related to child poverty and welfare, for example, knife crime and healthcare (8). A co-ordinated government approach may not be on the horizon but conferences and events such as these do bring together groups and individuals with the hope and aim to co-ordinated research, knowledge, and action. As we enter the final year of the SEED project we are increasingly focused on the dissemination of our research, where we can share our findings, and support larger action. 

1. Bradshaw, J. (2020). Child poverty in the North East. https://cpag.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/policypost/Child%20poverty%20in%20the%20NE.pdf

2. https://nechildpoverty.org.uk/facts

3. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18374710

4. Living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2017-18 to 2021-22. https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/10028

5. UN special rapporteur report on extreme poverty and human rights in the UK. https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G19/112/13/PDF/G1911213.pdf?OpenElement

6. The Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, spoke at the conference and his contribution to the report on the impact of the two-child limit policy. https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2019-06/All%20Kids%20Count%20report%20FINAL%20DESIGNED.pdf

7. https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/poverty-has-touched-the-lives-of-more-than-half-of-the-uks-millennium-generation/

8. https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/full-links-between-poverty-and-violent-crime

Last modified: Thu, 06 Feb 2020 15:51:14 GMT