Child poverty scars worn by economy and society

Two reports have come out recently on child poverty in the developed world. It’s a subject we have discussed as a nation since long before Dickens captured it in his novels. It is a deep and lasting bruise on our conscience, made more painful because it seems we are either powerless, or just insufficiently motivated, to close the gaps between those who have and who have not. 

The first, from the Centre for Social Justice, argues for a fresh look. It says measuring poverty by measuring income – which currently defines poverty as below 60 per cent of average earnings – is no longer fit for purpose. 

Child poverty campaigners argue we need a measure that lets us see what being poor means, and looking at incomes above and below 60 per cent in our own country means we steer clear of the endlessly diverting argument that “real” poverty exists only in emerging, struggling or developing nations. It doesn’t. It is real for around one in five of our children, and one in three in some cities and rural outposts.

The second publication is Unicef’s Report Card 10, Measuring Child Poverty. It too argues there are different ways to look at child poverty. It examines how many children in 29 developed nations are poor against a number of measures, including using 40 per cent, 50 per cent and 60 per cent of median incomes. The median is not the mathematical average, but the spot in the middle of the nation’s income scale, at which half of the households have more and half have less. If the top and bottom sums both move upwards, so the poor are a bit better off, but the rich continue to prosper, the middle is still the middle. You are defined as being in poverty if you remain below the middle. Unicef’s report calls on every nation to make children the beneficiaries of the “first call” on government money, rather than the last. It also looks at countries where gaps between rich and poor would be far greater were it not for rigorous state intervention deliberately moving money from the former, to the latter. It passes no judgment. It just presents the evidence.

Child deprivation index
The report acknowledges that “poor” in one nation is different from that in any other. It also presents the international child deprivation index, which humanises the argument, making us look not at the numbers, but the life of the child. The index lists things I would hope any child in England has: occasional evenings when friends can come over to play, and you can afford to feed them; three meals a day, at least one with some protein; a few books suitable for your age; things you can play with; enough money to join the school trip, or celebrate a birthday.

Is that list for ordinary things too much to ask? Well, for more than 3.8 million UK children at the moment it seems the answer is yes. Unicef’s report is worth quoting. “The heaviest cost is borne by the children. The economic argument, in anything but the shortest term, is heavily on the side of preventing children from falling into poverty in the first place. Because children have only one opportunity to develop normally in mind and body… the commitment to protection from poverty must be upheld in good times and in bad. A society that fails to maintain the commitment, even in difficult economic times, is a society that is failing its most vulnerable citizens and storing up intractable social and economic problems.” 

I wonder who is listening, who has read and who will heed this report. But the words must go on being said. 

Maggie Atkinson is the children’s ?commissioner for England