Abstract
Conventional poverty line studies treat children as passive and in effect invisible. Their only role is to act as a drain on family incomes, as additional points on the equivalence scale that is deigned to capture family needs. This approach is at odds with an accumulating body of empirical evidence showing that children not only contribute to family resources in various ways (including by earning and redistributing that income within the family) but also by suppressing their own needs and going without when family resources are stretched. The net impact of these factors on measured child poverty is uncertain although their existence suggests that conventional child poverty rates should be treated with caution. The deprivation approach pioneered by Townsend provides one way of overcoming some of the limitations of the poverty line approach because its focus is on the ability of individuals (including children) to attain an acceptable standard of living by purchasing items that are widely regarded as necessary or essential in society. This paper will set out the main limitations of a poverty line approach and draw on recent studies to illustrate how deprivation studies, supported by other research provide a better framework for understanding, identifying and measuring child poverty.
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Notes
- 1.
These ‘absolute’ poverty lines are as arbitrary as the benchmark year to which their value is anchored. Even so, they serve a useful role in capturing (some of) the impact of increases in the real incomes of those below the poverty line.
- 2.
Maître et al. (2013, pp. 26–27) have recently reviewed the EU 2020 Poverty and Social Exclusion Target and concluded that: …while sympathising with what it is seeking to achieve our general evaluation would be that the approach introduces more problems than it solves … our concerns are exacerbated by the suggestions … that future efforts might seek to incorporate factors such as exclusion from social relationships, access to services, etc. Seeking to accommodate a variety of very loosely correlated dimensions of social exclusion appears to us to be a recipe for confusion. An incoherent index is likely to produce incoherent communication and less than productive discussion. Our preference is for keeping the focus of EU poverty and social exclusion targets and measurement on the core elements of income poverty and generalised deprivation’.
- 3.
In contrast, Corak (2006, pp. 29) argues that a poverty line approach does not do a very good job at quantifying the extent of child poverty and that: ‘the first step in eliminating child poverty requires governments to clearly define and measure what it means for a child to be poor. Without this, credible targets cannot be set and progress cannot be monitored’.
- 4.
It is appropriate to refer to resources rather than income because the focus of the deprivation approach is on what can be afforded, which implies a broader conception than just monetary income.
- 5.
Although not discussed here, improvements have also been made to the poverty line approach in order to better capture actual living conditions and circumstances. This has involved supplementing income with information on financial stress or other dimensions of economic resources such as wealth or consumption (see Headey 2007).
- 6.
Even though eligibility for some social benefits reflects the presence of children, the payments themselves are made to the parent who has responsibility for the care of the child without any need to establish that they are used to benefit the children involved.
- 7.
It follows that if the equal income-sharing assumption is not appropriate – if for example, mothers put the needs of their children before their own and spend more on them at their own expense – then conventional poverty studies will under-estimate poverty among mothers and over-estimate poverty among children.
- 8.
As Main (2012, pp. 3) has argued: ‘While income can provide a household- or family level indicator of living standards, deprivation indicators that are specific to children have the advantage of being able to offer insight into intra-household distributions’.
- 9.
Alternatively, the level of deprivation can be measured by the percentage in each group that are deprived of a minimum number of necessary or essential items, although in this case a judgement is required to establish what constitutes the minimum.
- 10.
Sensitivity analysis is particularly important in Australia, where incomes can be bunched together in small ranges because of the flat-rate nature of its social security payments, so that a small change in the poverty line can make a big difference to how many are below it.
- 11.
- 12.
The New Zealand Children’s Commission has recently examined how to tackle child poverty and in the process has undertaken consultations with children. The ‘overarching message’ that emerged from these consultations was that children and young people want to be involved in developing solutions to child poverty and can provide a unique perspective on what actions are needed (Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty 2012).
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Saunders, P. (2015). Not Just Statistics: Making Children’s Poverty More Visible. In: Fernandez, E., Zeira, A., Vecchiato, T., Canali, C. (eds) Theoretical and Empirical Insights into Child and Family Poverty. Children’s Well-Being: Indicators and Research, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17506-5_3
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