Covid-19 widening disadvantage gap among babies and toddlers, research warns

Children from deprived areas are spending less time taking part in outdoor activities and have less access to books compared with their more advantaged peers during lockdown, researchers say.

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In addition, lockdown has been linked to a general increase in screen time, including watching TV and using tablets, among babies and toddlers, particularly among children from disadvantaged backgrounds, warns the research.

The findings have been published in a study of family life during the Covid-19 crisis by researchers from five universities, including the University of Oxford, and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

So far more than 500 parents of children under three years old have taken part in the survey which looks at activities such as screen time, singing, playing, exercise, gardening and arts and crafts.

“Children depend on high-quality interactions to support all aspects of their development, said University of Oxford researcher Alex Hendry, who is involved in the study.

“It is heartening to see that most families have been managing to find time to talk, read and play with their babies during this critical time, even amongst everything else going on. But from what parents are telling us it is clear that during lockdown some babies have been missing out.”

Another academic involved, Oxford Brookes University researcher Dr Nayeli Gonzalez-Gomez, said that children’s access to communal outdoor spaces and libraries “should only be restricted as a last resort” and called for extra support for disadvantaged children amid lockdown.

She added: “While we know disadvantaged families often do not have access to the same opportunities for child development as their more well-off peers, these disadvantages were exacerbated by the UK lockdown. In particular, the closure of playgrounds and libraries has disproportionately impacted children from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

Other early findings are that while nine out of ten families reported an increase in “enrichment” activities during lockdown, the proportion was lower among disadvantaged families. Three quarters of all parents reported their children spent more time than usual watching TV or playing with a tablet.

Commenting on the report, Sally Hogg, head of policy and campaigning at the charity Parent-Infant Foundation, said: “This research demonstrates, yet again, that babies in families from more disadvantaged communities have been impacted more by the Covid-19 crisis.”

She is calling for extra funding to help local services support families with babies, who were born around lockdown.

"There have been catch-up funds for school age children, but this research reinforces that young children need support too," she said.

The research coincides with latest Department for Education figures that show half of nurseries and childminders fear closure by summer 2021.

The DfE survey of providers found that only 55 per cent of group based operators and 45 per cent of childminders believe they are financially sustainable for another year.

Early Years Alliance chief executive Neil Leitch said that the survey’s findings mirror its own warning to government that providers face closure without greater support.

"What more evidence does the government need before it accepts that urgent action is required if we're going to have any chance of preventing the sector entering a full-blown crisis? If government research suggested that half of all schools would be forced to close by next summer, there would be an outcry,” he said.

“The idea that any minister can look at figures as stark as this and do nothing absolutely beggars belief.”