Relative Child Poverty Research Articles

When growth is not enough: Do government transfers moderate the effect of economic growth on absolute and relative child poverty?

Economic growth is commonly seen as the main driver of poverty reduction in a global perspective, but its impact varies substantially across cases. Meanwhile, the literature has been relatively silent regarding the role of social policy in explaining this variation. In light of an emerging attention to redistribution and social protection in promoting inclusive growth, this article analyses how government cash transfer systems moderate the effect of economic growth on both relative and absolute child poverty across low- and middle-income countries. The empirical analyses compare trends within 16 countries, using data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), by means of descriptive analyses and multivariate regression techniques. Findings show that both economic growth and the expansion of government transfer schemes were associated with falling absolute child poverty rates. While the association between growth and relative child poverty was on average more muted, the analyses found growth to be related to reductions in relative child poverty when combined with sufficiently extensive government transfers, while the opposite effect was found in the face of inadequate levels of transfers. The study provides a framework for studying interrelated effects of national institutions and economic processes, with the findings highlighting the fruitfulness of including indicators on social protection policies when inquiring about enabling conditions for inclusive growth in a development context.

About Poverty and Inequality in Japan

As a result of the ageing of the population, shifts in the structure of households, changes in the labor market in the last two to three decades, in Japan, there is a gradual strengthening of the initial income disparity, as well as some increase in the relative poverty rate. However, through the mechanisms of redistribution of income embedded in the social security system and tax system, as well as through the provision of material support to the least protected segments of the population, the state has managed to restrain these processes. The measures taken to support families with children in recent years have been particularly important. They made it possible to reduce the rate of relative child poverty and keep income inequality among this group of families at a relatively low level.Obviously, current income, by which the level of relative poverty and income inequality are measured, cannot clearly indicate that a family or a particular person live in poverty. In addition to the current income, the standard of living also depends on the amount of financial savings, the availability of real estate, the possession of securities, etc. For example, older citizens, who are among the least well-off in terms of current income, have the largest share of the country’s accumulated financial assets. The results of opinion polls conducted annually by the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office show that the changes taking place in the country have not led to the transformation of the Japanese “middle-class society” into a “divided society”.For more than half a century, the absolute majority of the Japanese, about 90 percent, when asked how they would rate their families’ standard of living, chose the answer “middle level”. At the same time, in the composition of the middle class, there was a shift towards the increasing share of the more well-off (middle and higher) strata. In general, Japanese society remains healthy and prosperous. As for poverty, unlike Russia, where it is a consequence of blatant social injustice and extreme social contrasts, in Japan, in our opinion, it is not systemic and arises as a result of some particularly unfavorable, exceptional circumstances in which a family or a person find themselves.

The impact of using an income supplement to meet child poverty targets: evidence from Scotland

AbstractIn 2017 the Scottish Government passed the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act with the commitment to significantly reduce the relative child poverty rate from the current prevailing level of around 25% to 10% by 2030/31. In response, the government introduced the Scottish Child Payment (SCP) that provides a direct transfer to households at a fixed rate per eligible child – currently £25 per week. In this paper we explore, using a micro to macro modelling approach, the effectiveness of using the SCP to achieve the Scottish child poverty targets. While we find that the ambitious child poverty targets can technically be met solely using the SCP, the necessary payment of £165 per week amounting to a total government cost of £3 billion per year, makes the political and economy-wide barriers significant. A key issue with only using the SCP is the non-linearity in the response to the payment; as the payment increases, the marginal gain in the reduction of child poverty decreases – this is particularly evident after payments of £80 per week. A ‘policy-mix’ option combining the SCP, targeted cash transfers and other policy levels (such as childcare provision) seems the most promising approach to reaching the child poverty targets.

Towards optimising children’s capability and tackling relative child poverty in high-income countries: the cases of Japan, Sweden and the UK since 2000

ABSTRACT Background We question why child poverty still prevails even in high-income countries, such as Japan, Sweden and the United Kingdom. We address the intersection between social relations and individual experiences that should be considered when optimising children’s capability. Objectives The study is therefore aimed at exploring compensatory societal actions taken to optimise children’s capability among these affluent countries. In order to do so, we operationalised children’s capability by including key societal domains along with statistical indicators and variables from relevant sources. Methods A secondary quantitative method was adopted by drawing upon data sources from 2000 up to almost 2020 from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Bank and the United Nations Children’s Fund, with these being complemented by governmental data. Given a lack of currently available and comparable data for those three countries, four key societal domains were explored in an absolute descriptive analysis. Results It is obvious that child poverty prevailed over the focal 20 years in these three high-income countries. Also, the exploratory data analysis revealed a lack of sufficient supporting social services in each societal domain. This demonstrates that optimising children’s capability should not just be about subsidising economic resources, but also supporting all initiatives aimed at addressing the lack of interactions between each domain of children’s capability. Conclusions The study shows how essential it is to consider societal compensatory measures along with supporting the financial circumstances. We therefore argue that optimising children’s capability should not only be about subsidising economic resources, but also ensuring adequate social resources and relations.

ПРОБЛЕМАТИКА ДЕТСКОЙ БЕДНОСТИ КАК ФАКТОРА НИЗКОЙ РОЖДАЕМОСТИ В РОССИИ

The problem of depopulation has become a major challenge for modern Russia. The demographic policy resulted in a short-term increase in the birth rate, but there remains the overall downward trend. The reason is that the current demographic situation in the country is a combination of global demographic transition processes and an unfavorable socio-economic situation. According to sociological studies, one of the main factors constraining the birth of children is the lack of material resources. The article presents a regional analysis of the distribution of constituent entities of the Russian Federation by the total fertility rate (TFR) as the basis of reproductive behavior and by the level of poverty of the population. Regions with a high birth rate were found to have a high level of poverty (the Republics of Chechnya, Tyva, and Altai). Since 2008, there has been an increase in relative child poverty; regions where this indicator is higher than the national average are divided into two groups – those with a high level of general poverty (Republic of Mari El, Pskov region, Republic of Karelia, Saratov region, Smolensk region) and regions with a low level of general poverty (Sakhalin region, Moscow, Moscow region, Lipetsk region, Voronezh region). When assessing the closeness of the relationship between the TFR indicators and relative child poverty, we revealed that the higher the level of child poverty, the lower the number of children in families. Out of 35 regions with a TFR of more than 1.5, only 9 territories have a poverty level below 12.3%. These are the national Republics of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug; the Tyumen and Sakhalin regions, which are ‘rich’ in raw materials; the Krasnodar Krai, actively accepting internal migration; the Sverdlovsk region, being the center of the industrial Urals; the Khabarovsk Krai, which is the center of the Far East; and the city of Moscow, where the poverty level is the lowest in the country. The study has identified the areas where a high birth rate has led to a concentration of poverty risks, especially for children, which, in turn, has long-term negative consequences for the development of regions. One of the main problems in preventing depopulation is the reduction of child poverty as one of the determining factors of reproductive behavior, social development, and public health.

Addressing Child Poverty: How Does the United States Compare With Other Nations?

Poverty during childhood raises a number of policy challenges. The earliest years are critical in terms of future cognitive and emotional development and early health outcomes, and have long-lasting consequences on future health. In this article child poverty in the United States is compared with a set of other developed countries. To the surprise of few, results show that child poverty is high in the United States. But why is poverty so much higher in the United States than in other rich nations? Among child poverty drivers, household composition and parent's labor market participation matter a great deal. But these are not insurmountable problems. Many of these disadvantages can be overcome by appropriate public policies. For example, single mothers have a very high probability of poverty in the United States, but this is not the case in other countries where the provision of work support increases mothers' labor earnings and together with strong public cash support effectively reduces child poverty. In this article we focus on the role and design of public expenditure to understand the functioning of the different national systems and highlight ways for improvements to reduce child poverty in the United States. We compare relative child poverty in the United States with poverty in a set of selected countries. The takeaway is that the United States underinvests in its children and their families and in so doing this leads to high child poverty and poor health and educational outcomes. If a nation like the United States wants to decrease poverty and improve health and life chances for poor children, it must support parental employment and incomes, and invest in children's futures as do other similar nations with less child poverty.

The Global Financial Crisis and Child Poverty: The Case of Australia 2006–10

AbstractWhile events associated with the global financial crisis (GFC) had a profound impact on real family incomes and well‐being in many rich countries, impacts in Australia were relatively minor. One reason for this was the massive policy response by the Australian government at the outset of the GFC, which pumped billions of dollars into the pockets of low and middle income families. This article examines the impact of this stimulus on child poverty in Australia in the context of longer‐term policies on income support for families with children. We show that the emphasis of longer‐term policy has been to moderate support for families with children and that, since the mid‐1990s, rates of relative child poverty have not fallen. We find that while the impact of the stimulus was to reduce child poverty, the underlying trajectory of policies towards family assistance and child poverty in Australia has not changed, and therefore there is no expectation that child poverty will continue to fall in the future.

The challenge of securing durable reductions in child poverty in New Zealand

New Zealand has tolerated significant levels of relative child poverty for more than two decades. For a country which once prided itself on being comparatively egalitarian and, more particularly, on being a great place to bring up children, this is surprising. It is also concerning. Child poverty imposes many long-term costs. This is especially the case, according to the available evidence, when poverty occurs during early childhood1 and when it is severe and/or persistent. These costs afflict not only the children directly exposed to poverty (e.g. in the form of lower educational achievement, reduced lifetime earnings and poorer health outcomes), but also society as a whole. The wider social and economic costs include increased health care costs, lower productivity growth and higher rates of criminal offending.2 In short, the empirical evidence suggests that substantial rates of child poverty reduce a nation’s prosperity. Hence, on economic grounds alone there is a case for seeking lower child poverty rates. Other considerations, such as the pursuit of fair opportunities for all children, make such a goal even more compelling.

Child Poverty in Portugal

This article analyses the extent and persistence of child poverty in Portugal between 1995 and 2001. Data from the Portuguese component of the European Community Household Panel Survey (ECHP) are used to estimate child poverty rates and children's flows in and out of poverty. The article focuses upon an analysis based on family income and on a set of non-monetary indicators. This approach allows a comparison of changes in child income poverty and deprivation and, therefore, tests the consistency of child poverty from a dynamic perspective. Overall, relative child poverty rates in Portugal are among the highest in the EU. Children are a group particularly vulnerable to poverty and show a significant risk of poverty, compared to the population as a whole. Children living in households with three or more siblings, children in lone-parent families and in households headed by an unemployed person present a higher risk of income poverty. In terms of deprivation, the results obtained are, on average, consistent with the outcomes of the family income based analysis. This study of child poverty presents a portrait of child poverty in Portugal, and offers important indicators for social policy design.

Relative Child Poverty, Income Inequality, Wealth, and Health

ABUNDANT EVIDENCE NOW SUGGESTS THAT LIVING IN relative poverty and exposure to relative income inequality, especially in childhood, may have a detrimental influence on health and well-being during childhood and across the life course. This Commentary discusses the importance of relative poverty in childhood and the implications of income inequality for population health. Child relative poverty (ie, children living in a household with relative income poverty) appears to be a potentially important indicator for children’s health. Relative income poverty is commonly defined as having equivalized household income of less than 50% of the national median. Equivalization is calculated by dividing household income by an indicator of household composition or need, for example, the square rootof thenumberof individuals living in thehousehold. Child relative poverty is strongly related to overall income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient, which reflects inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth for the population of a nation; a lower Gini coefficient suggests more equal income or wealth distribution, whereas a high Gini coefficient reflects more unequal distribution of income and wealth. For instance, the United States has both the highest national wealth and the highest Gini coefficient. Thus, in the United States, as with many of the world’s richest countries, there is little or no association between national wealth and the levels of income inequality evident within those nations. Given that relative poverty is defined in terms of deviation from country-specific median income, there is no a priori reason to expect an association between relative poverty and national wealth. Two factors appear to be particularly relevant to understanding the variation in relative poverty. First, clear international differences in income inequality (and the consequent risk of exposure to relative poverty) result from levels of participation in and the operation of labor markets. Second, redistributive income policies (the combined effects of progressive direct taxation and provision of welfare benefits) play a key role in attenuating market-driven inequalities and thereby in determining rates of child relative poverty and income inequality experienced by the population. For instance, a recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development study reported that child relative poverty rates in 2000 calculated without taking into account any effects due to taxation and benefits were more than 25% in the United Kingdom, France, Australia, New Zealand, and theUnitedStates. However, theeffectsof redistributive income policiesvariedmarkedlyacross thesecountries, reducingactual child relative poverty rates by more than 70% in France (from 28% to 7%) by more than 50% in Australia (from 27% to 15%), by more than 40% in the United Kingdom (from 29% to 16%) and New Zealand (from 29% to 15%), and by just 18% in the United States (from 27% to 22%). Relative child poverty appears to be associated with health and, in particular, the health of nations. For example, international or interstate variation in rates of income inequality or child relative poverty have been associated with higher rates of adverse health outcomes including the following: poorer overall child well-being, infant mortality, low birth weight, not having polio immunizations, child mortality due to unintentional injuries, juvenile homicide, low educational attainment, dropping out of school, nonparticipation in higher education, aspiring to low-skilled work, poorer peer relations, having been bullied, teenage birth rate, physical inactivity, childhood obesity, not eating breakfast, feeling lonely, and mental health problems. Moreover, across nations with wide ranges of per capita income and poverty levels, there appears to be an ecologic association between child relative poverty rates and mortality rates for children younger than 5 years (FIGURE). Similarly, exposure to relative poverty or having a low socioeconomic position in childhood has been associated with increased adult morbidity and mortality resulting from (among other causes): stomach, liver, and lung cancer; diabetes; coronary heart disease; stroke; respiratory diseases; nervous system conditions; diseases of the digestive system; alcoholic cirrhosis; unintentional injuries; and homicide. It is therefore not surprising that increasing attention is being paid to reducing child relative poverty (or ameliorating the effects of child relative poverty) as a central component of attempts to improve the health of nations and reduce health inequalities between and within nations. Indeed, there exists a sound evidence base regarding the de-

CHILDREN, FAMILIES AND THE FAILURE OF UK ANTI‐POVERTY POLICY

Relative child poverty is often associated with single parenthood. In fact, children of single parents have always constituted a minority of relatively poor children in the UK. However, in the last decade the Blair government has pursued an anti‐poverty strategy targeted at single‐parent families with the result that children in couple families have become relatively poorer and powerful disincentives have been created that discourage people from taking the most viable routes out of poverty.

Can Child Poverty Be Abolished? Promises and Policies in the UK

AbstractIn 1999 Tony Blair, the UK Prime Minister, promised to end child poverty within a generation. What does this mean? Can it be achieved? What progress has been made so far? The paper starts by placing UK child poverty at the end of the 20th Century in historical and international context. It reviews the policies that have been introduced in order to meet specific interim targets - of reducing child poverty by one quarter by 2004/5 and halving it in ten years - and discusses the prospects for success in meeting these targets. The second part takes a step back and reflects on why child poverty - rather than poverty more generally - has become the political and policy focus. It then considers whether such an emphasis - together with the particular policy directions that have been taken - may be counter-productive in meeting the eventual goal of ending child poverty. The ‘end to child poverty’ has now been translated as meaning having achieved a relative child poverty rate that is ‘among the best (i.e. lowest) in Europe’. The final part of the paper considers what this might involve. To what extent can the policy approaches taken by the current ‘best in Europe’ countries be seen as recipes for success for the UK, or indeed elsewhere?

Session 1 Introduction: Social, Economic, and Political Determinants of Child Health

Session Chairs: Margaret Lynch, MD, DCH, FRCP, FRCPCH, and Thomas Tonniges, MD, FAAP Speakers: Nick Spencer, MD, and David Wood, MD, MPH, FAAPThis meeting has had quite a long gestation. The first seeds were sown when I attended an American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) meeting in Washington, DC, in 1996 to take part in a special human rights session that Jeff Goldhagen, MD, had organized. It became apparent then that the Royal College of Paediatrics and the AAP had common interests in community pediatrics and in public and international health. Since then, I have come to know and respect the work of the AAP in relation to child advocacy and community pediatrics.The reason for the equity theme we have chosen is that currently the United States and the United Kingdom share last place among developed countries for the level of relative child poverty, yet our associations both take a holistic view of children’s health and are acutely aware of the effects of poverty on health, so it seems right that we work together in finding ways to mitigate these effects.It was during a visit by Thomas Tonniges, MD, to the United Kingdom several years ago that our Prime Minister Tony Blair made a commitment to end child poverty within 20 years. Therefore, we have in the United Kingdom a sense of political direction to support our health service work. Hence, we should now “seize the hour, seize the time” to advance this vital cause and find a way to collaborate in research, education, and the practice of child health.The following 2 presentations by Nick Spencer, MD, and David Wood, MD, on the social, political, and economic determinants of child health will provide an introduction and framework for the issues that will confront us and with which we will deal during this meeting.

Child Poverty in Spain from the 70’s to the 90’s: A static and a dynamic approach

This paper examines the extent and persistence of relative child poverty in Spain making use of the available cross-sectional and longitudinal microdata on households. The cross-sectional evidence analyzed covers the period from the end of the Franco era to the beginning of the 1990s. The longitudinal analysis focuses only on the more recent 1985 - 95 period. The analysis shows that despite the fact that a major socioeconomic transformation took place in Spain and the population poverty rate significantly decreased in the period, the extent of child poverty over the period did not experience any significant change. Children living in households with 3 or more children with other dependent adults face one of the highest poverty risks, the highest rate of inflow into poverty and the lowest rate of outflow from poverty. The risk of poverty and of persistent poverty for a child in lone and single parent families is also higher than that of households headed by couples. It seems that young unemployed parents or elderly retired grandparents with a low level of education impose onto children a higher risk of poverty and of persistent poverty. In contrast, children in single parent households have a higher risk of suffering income instability. However, all child poverty risks are substantially reduced with the presence of other non dependent adults. Their role is one of protection against poverty risks for households out of poverty. Thus, the presence in the household of some employed adults is acting as a safety net for low income families.