Trends In Child Poverty Research Articles

Current research trends in child poverty and psychological resilience research: A bibliometric analysis approach

AbstractThe first of the sustainable development goals is to end poverty by 2030. Although many individual, social, and psychological resources have been proposed to reduce poverty, little is known about psychological resilience factors and related variables in reducing it. While the literature on childhood poverty and psychological resilience indicates that there was a relationship between these variables, it also draws attention to the fact that a growing interest in the need to consider psychological factors in reducing child poverty. Contextually, this study is bibliometric research that aims to reveal the current research trends about child poverty and psychological resilience. The researcher reviewed the Web of Science to highlight current trends in child poverty and resilience research and found 1065 relevant documents that met the inclusion criteria. The research used co‐occurrence, citation, and bibliographic coupling techniques from the bibliometric analysis type. Research results showed that poverty, resilience, children, protective factors, youth, parenting, COVID‐19, stress, and mental health were the nine significant clusters where the poverty and resilience keywords were gathered (items = 120, links = 988, total link strength = 1646). The United States had the most publications and was the most collaborative country. The most associated SDG target was good health and well‐being. Research trends underline that the five most studied keywords were resilience, poverty, children, health, and risk. Thematic map results indicated that socioeconomic status, childhood, and adjustment topics were important, well‐developed, and structuring themes, while resilience, poverty, and children topics were essential themes but still needed to be well‐developed. The research findings highlight the importance of resiliency factors that can potentially reduce child poverty. The results also give researchers essential insights into socioeconomic, mental, psychological, and environmental factors that they can use in their intervention practices holistically in reducing child poverty.

Inequalities in out-of-home care rates in England: Does local party politics matter?

BackgroundInequalities in the proportion of children experiencing abuse and neglect or a children's social care intervention have become a research focus in the last decade. One almost unexplored factor of growth in rates of children in out-of-home care is local party politics. ObjectiveWe assessed whether growth in rates of out-of-home care in England varied by local authority party political control. MethodsWe collated administrative data on the 152 local authorities in England between 2015 and 2021. We used Bayesian parallel process latent growth models to assess whether growth in rates of children in care in English local authorities has been equal across Labour, Conservative, No Overall Control, and no political majority councils before and after adjusting for trends in child poverty, household income from employment, and expenditure on preventative services. ResultsPrior to adjusting for trends in child poverty, average household income, and expenditure, we find little evidence for differences in trends; once adjusted, we find that trends in Labour authorities were lower (−1.125 children looked after per 10,000 per year) than in Conservative authorities. Had growth in family and local authority economic factors remained constant, our findings suggested out-of-home care rates would have, on average, been stable or decreasing in Labour local authorities but would have continued to rise elsewhere. ConclusionsThe contribution of local party politics to growing rates of out-of-home care remains under-theorised and under-researched, but there are potentially substantial differences along party lines that are masked by unequal exposure to changes in poverty.

Child poverty and children entering care in England, 2015–20: a longitudinal ecological study at the local area level

BackgroundChildren in care face adverse health outcomes throughout their life course compared with their peers. In England, over the past decade, the stark rise in the number of cared-for children has coincided with rising child poverty, a key risk factor for children entering care. We aimed to assess the contribution of recent trends in child poverty to trends in care entry.MethodsIn this longitudinal, ecological study of 147 local authorities in England, we linked data from the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue & Customs on the proportion of children younger than 16 years living in families with income less than 60% of the contemporary national median income, before housing costs, with Department for Education data on rates of children younger than 16 years entering care. Using within-between regression models, and controlling for employment trends, we estimated the association of changing child poverty rates with changing care entry rates within different areas. Our primary outcome was the annual rate of children younger than 16 years starting to be looked after by local authorities in England.FindingsBetween 2015 and 2020, controlling for employment rates, a 1 percentage point increase in child poverty was associated with an additional five children entering care per 100 000 children (95% CI 2–8). We estimate that, over the study period, 8·1% of the total number of children under the age of 16 entering care (5·0–11·3) were linked to rising child poverty, equivalent to 10 351 (6447–14 567) additional children.InterpretationWe report evidence that rising child poverty rates might be contributing to an increase in children entering care. Children's exposure to poverty creates and compounds adversity, driving poor health and social outcomes in later life. National anti-poverty policies are key to tackling adverse trends in children's care entry in England.FundingNational Institute for Health Research (NIHR) School for Public Health Research, NIHR Public Health Policy Research Unit, Swedish Research Council, Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council, and NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North West Coast.

Child Poverty Amongst Young Carers in the UK: Prevalence and Trends in the Wake of the Financial Crisis, Economic Downturn and Onset of Austerity

The article provides the first estimates of prevalence and trends in child poverty amongst young carers aged 5–19 in the UK using specialized income data from the Family Resources Survey / the Households Below Average Income Survey. Looking across four key indicators, we find that child poverty rates were higher amongst young carers than other children based on 3 years pooled data for 2013/14–2015/16. The differences in the prevalence of child poverty amongst young carers and other children are statistically significant in relation to two indicators (anchored low income before housing costs, and a combined measure of low income and material deprivation). Young carers also appear to have fared worse than other children in terms of trends in child poverty outcomes over the period that coincided with the financial crisis, economic downturn and onset of austerity. Amongst young carers, there was a statistically significant increase in relative low income after housing costs of nine percentage points (from 24 to 33%) between 2005/07 and 2013/15. This compares with a two percentage point decline amongst other children. Multivariate findings confirm that trends in child poverty outcomes amongst young carers were highly differentiated from those of other children and that the association between child poverty and young caring status strengthened over the period under observation. Multivariate analysis further suggests that the increases in child poverty rates amongst young carers were not driven by purely “compositional” factors relating to demographic characteristics of the households in which young carers live and that labour market factors are particularly important in explaining the trends that are observed. Overall, the findings from the study raise concerns that young carers were disproportionately impacted by the patterns of stagnating real income and declining income from employment that characterized the period following the financial crisis, economic downturn and onset of austerity, whilst underlining the importance of housing costs as a factor in child poverty amongst young carers, and raising important questions regarding the ongoing effectiveness of social protection for this group.

Child poverty across immigrant generations in the United States, 1993–2016: Evidence using the official and supplemental poverty measures

Background: Recent increases in ethno-racial diversity in the United States are paralleled by growing representation of first- and second-generation immigrants, especially among children. Socioeconomic inequalities along the lines of immigrant generation, race, and ethnicity suggest such demographic changes may result in greater disparities among recent, more-diverse cohorts of children. Objective: Describe poverty rates among US children across five immigrant generation groups, using the US government’s official poverty measure (OPM) and a supplemental poverty measure (SPM), which accounts for government transfers and costs of living. Methods: Using data from the Current Population Survey and historical SPM estimates from 1993–2016, we describe trends in child poverty, stratified by immigrant generation. We compare estimates of inter-generational differences and temporal changes based on the OPM and SPM, and we conduct stratified analyses for Hispanic and Asian children. Results: We find persistent differences in poverty rates between immigrant generations. First-generation non-citizens and second-generation children with two foreign-born parents have consistently higher poverty rates than other generations, between which there are minimal disparities. Differences between OPM- and SPM-based estimates suggest public supports and costs of living have differential welfare effects across groups. Contribution: We provide a historical record of child poverty differentials across immigrant generations, which have been understudied. Results demonstrate heterogeneity in the economic status of first- and second-generation children, which would be masked using other immigrant-generation typologies. Differences in OPM- and SPM-based measures raise questions about inter-generational disparities in public supports and costs of living, and stratified results highlight the intersection of race, ethnicity, and nativity as axes of inequality.

The TANF Resources Problem

The year 2016 marked the twentieth anniversary of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), which replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC) with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Whereas AFDC was based on an open‐ended matching grant, TANF is funded with a block grant from the federal government and “maintenance of effort” (MOE) obligations for states, which were generally set at 75 percent of nominal expenditures in the mid‐1990s. This article looks at trends in TANF funding compared to trends in child poverty. We include a more comprehensive poverty measure and adjustments for interstate variation in prices. Over the past decade, inequality in state resources per poor child has increased. The disparities are great, making application of uniform TANF work participation standards to all states without adjustment for variation in resources questionable. The article concludes with an exploration of the connection between TANF resources and state fiscal capacity and a discussion of options for reform.

Trends in Child Poverty by Race/Ethnicity: New Evidence Using an Anchored Historical Supplemental Poverty Measure

Trends in Child Poverty by Race/Ethnicity: New Evidence Using an Anchored Historical Supplemental Poverty Measure

Trends in Child Poverty Using an Improved Measure of Poverty

The official measure of poverty has been used to assess trends in children's poverty rates for many decades. But because of flaws in official poverty statistics, these basic trends have the potential to be misleading. We use an augmented Current Population Survey data set that calculates an improved measure of poverty to reexamine child poverty rates between 1967 and 2012. This measure, the Anchored Supplemental Poverty Measure, is based partially on the US Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics' new Supplemental Poverty Measure. We focus on 3 age groups of children, those aged 0 to 5, 6 to 11, and 12 to 17 years. Young children have the highest poverty rates, both historically and today. However, among all age groups, long-term poverty trends have been more favorable than official statistics would suggest. This is entirely due to the effect of counting resources from government policies and programs, which have reduced poverty rates substantially for children of all ages. However, despite this progress, considerable disparities in the risk of poverty continue to exist by education level and family structure.

Trends in Child Poverty in Sweden: Parental and Child Reports.

We use several family-based indicators of household poverty as well as child-reported economic resources and problems to unravel child poverty trends in Sweden. Our results show that absolute (bread-line) household income poverty, as well as economic deprivation, increased with the recession 1991–96, then reduced and has remained largely unchanged since 2006. Relative income poverty has however increased since the mid-1990s. When we measure child poverty by young people’s own reports, we find few trends between 2000 and 2011. The material conditions appear to have improved and relative poverty has changed very little if at all, contrasting the development of household relative poverty. This contradictory pattern may be a consequence of poor parents distributing relatively more of the household income to their children in times of economic duress, but future studies should scrutinze potentially delayed negative consequences as poor children are lagging behind their non-poor peers. Our methodological conclusion is that although parental and child reports are partly substitutable, they are also complementary, and the simultaneous reporting of different measures is crucial to get a full understanding of trends in child poverty.

Trends in Child Poverty in Hong Kong Immigrant Families

In Hong Kong, child poverty is a serious social problem which may lead to intergenerational poverty, but nevertheless only a few studies have examined this issue, particularly for immigrant families. Using Census data (5 %) from 1981, 1991, 2001, and 2011, we assessed child poverty rates in the past three decades and identified key variables contributing to changes in the risk of child poverty for both immigrant and local families. Our results indicate that child poverty rates in Hong Kong-born families have fluctuated between 14.3 and 15.8 % over the past three decades, while for immigrant families they have increased steadily and substantially from 18.1 % in 1981 to 36.5 % in 2001 and then to 37.5 % in 2011. We show that the increase in immigrant child poverty is associated with changes in the Hong Kong economy that have made it more difficult for such families to adapt to the host society, especially in the 1990s and that this negative effect offset the positive influence of compositional changes among this group of immigrant families in terms of parental education levels and family size. The gap between immigrant and local families in terms of child poverty risk is mainly due to the fact that during the 1990s the negative effect of contextual changes in Hong Kong was cancelled out by the beneficial impact of compositional changes for local families, but not for immigrant families where the latter effect was minimal.

Children, Families and Poverty: Definitions, Trends, Emerging Science and Implications for Policy.

Now, more than ever, it is crucial to address the topic of children and poverty in the U.S., given current scientific knowledge about poverty's influence on children and effective strategies to mitigate its negative impact. In this report, we summarize the best available information on definitions and trends in child poverty, policy responses to child poverty and the impact of poverty on children's health and development. Research suggests that various factors exert upward and downward pressure on child poverty rates. Upward pressure is exerted by declining work rates for men, stagnant wages for low-wage workers, increasing rates of children raised in female-headed households, and growing gaps in educational attainment. Downward pressure is exerted by the U.S. system of antipoverty policies and programs, which appears to be cutting "pre-transfer" poverty rates by more than 50%. Nonetheless, child poverty rates in the United States are high by both historical and international comparison. We then review the emerging science on biological and ecological processes by which poverty affects child development and key findings regarding the efficacy of comprehensive strategies to reduce poverty and to promote the human capital development of poor children. In the final section, we reflect on implications for moving forward in science and policy.

Developing a framework for monitoring child poverty: results from a study in Uganda

In 2002 Save the Children UK carried out a study of child poverty in Uganda, as part of the on‐going Uganda Participatory Poverty Assessment Programme. Using participants from all regions of the country, the researchers asked children about their perceptions of poverty and anti‐poverty strategies, as well as questioning adult key informants about trends in child poverty, vulnerable groups and the effectiveness of government policies in tackling child poverty. This article reports on one aspect of the study, looking at the different indicators that children use to assess poverty, and comparing these with official poverty monitoring indicators. It finds that while some areas—notably, health, education and water and sanitation—are well documented, others, which may be as, or more significant to children's welfare, such as child abuse or quality of parental care, are almost totally neglected. A more holistic framework for assessing child poverty is proposed.

Trends in Child Poverty in Australia, 1982 to 1995–96

This study suggests that child poverty in Australia fell by about one‐third between 1982 and 1995–96, largely as a result of the very substantial increases in government cash payments to lower income families with children. However, while there were sharp falls in poverty among dependent children, poverty rates among 15 to 18 year‐olds who had left the parental home or who were still living at home but not in full‐time study increased very sharply. In addition, the after‐housing poverty picture did not look so optimistic, apparently due to a compositional shift in the types of families in after‐housing poverty.

CALCULATING A PRICE INDEX FOR FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN: IMPLICATIONS FOR MEASURING TRENDS IN CHILD POVERTY RATES

This paper investigates the effects of varying consumption patterns for families with and without children on measured trends in child poverty. We first use data from consumer expenditure surveys to calculate price indices by family type. We next examine the effect of using these group‐specific price indices on measured trends in child poverty. Although we find that, all else equal, children increase the cost of living, our calculations indicate that on average families with children experienced relatively lower inflation rates than families without children during the 1968 to 1987 period. While this result suggests that estimates of child poverty rates calculated using an average price index may have over‐stated secular increases in child poverty, we find that child poverty rates calculated using a price index specific lo families with children are not substantively different from those calculated using an average index for all families.

Poor Kids: trends in Child Poverty in Britain, 1968–96

AbstractAccording to Family Expenditure Survey (FES) data, child poverty (with a poverty line defined at half mean equivalised household income) has risen markedly in Britain in the last 30 years. By 1995–96, around one in three ‐ or 4.3 million ‐ children were living in poor households. This compares with child poverty rates of one in ten, corresponding to 1.4 million children, in 1968.The employment position of the household is seen to be important, with over half of poor children in 1995–96 living in households with no adults in work. If an absolute, rather than a relative, poverty line is utilised, child poverty remains stagnant since the late 1970s, following a period of rapid decline from 1968, despite considerable rises in average living standards. This reveals that the income position of households with children has been falling relative to that of childless households over time. Finally, looking at expenditure patterns and comparing their trends with income‐based poverty measures tends to reinforce these findings.

Directions for Reducing Child Poverty

The rate of child poverty in the United States is higher now than in 1966. Children are the poorest age group and are more likely to be poor than children in other industrial economies. The level and trends in child poverty are analyzed; the major American income support policies for children, including recent reforms of Aid to Families with Dependent Children, are described; and the impact of those policies on poverty are evaluated. Alternate strategies for reducing child poverty, including an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, child support system reforms, and a medical insurance plan, are proposed. Pragmatic, administratively feasible policies exist that can substantially reduce child poverty without significant new government spending.