Tackling child poverty: an urgent priority
More than four million children are living in poverty in the UK. This means in an average classroom of 30, nine children will be living in poverty. Poverty disproportionately affects children living in a family where a person has a disability (34 per cent are in poverty) and children from Black and minority ethnic communities (47 per cent are in poverty).
Poverty means kids going without things they need. Children are arriving at school hungry and unable to concentrate. They are returning to cold homes. And they are missing out on everyday experiences that make up childhood, like school trips, going to birthday parties and having friends round for tea.
‘[It] feels like I’m left out of the fun that happens and stuff. Like it just makes me feel empty.’
Gideon, age 14
Poverty affects all aspects of childhood. It can affect friendships and opportunities, creating isolation, stigma and sadness. Poverty puts children’s education, health and life chances on the line. At the age of 5, children in poverty are 4.8 months behind their classmates at school. By the end of primary school they are 10.3 months behind. At 16, they are 18.8 months behind, with obvious knock-on effects for their future. Household income is the strongest predictor of how well a child will do in school, and efforts to tackle this attainment gap fall seriously short if they do not address income.
Poverty affects child health even before birth. Children in poverty are more likely to have asthma and other childhood diseases. They are more likely to have poor mental health. Child poverty also affects health in later life.
We know that child poverty can be reduced – across the UK 700,000 kids were lifted out of poverty after housing costs between 1998/99 and 2010/11 (1 million kids were lifted out of poverty before housing costs in the same period). The policy drivers of child poverty are known, and the solutions are within our grasp. With political leadership and determination, we can still make the crucial difference for this generation of children as well as the next – making their daily lives better and their future lives brighter.