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Child poverty is high on the government's agenda. In 1999, Tony Blair announced that it was committed to eradicating child poverty by 2020, halving it by 2010 and reducing it by one quarter by 2004. Accordingly the government has been active in reducing social exclusion and improving the financial lot of families. But it has become clear that measuring and understanding poverty is highly complex.

The Centre for Research on Families and Relationships recently completed research for the Scottish executive exploring views and experiences of poverty among low income families with children. The intention was to help government develop effective policies to eliminate child poverty within a generation. Here, we focus on the key findings for children.

Adults in low income families tend to draw a distinction between being on an even keel and experiencing poverty. Through this distinction, they tend to position themselves above poverty, while acknowledging that the quality of life that they experience remains inadequate. Children in low income families also distance themselves from poverty, but they tend to understand poverty to be a more extreme condition that is far removed from their every day experiences.

How would you define poverty?

"I would say poverty's like the people who ... sleep on the streets and things like that."

"I think that if you've got a house, and you have clothes sort of thing and you do go to school, you're not [poor]."

However, teenagers in particular are aware of more subtle differences among their peers. For example, parents report how older children are not so keen to be seen shopping inside budget stores:

"I hate going into Lidls. The weans will go 'I'll wait over ...' You're not allowed to walk about with a Lidls bag ... you've got to take a black bag to put their bags in."

Some teenagers reported that not being able to afford the "right" clothes or having the latest gadgets could lead to social withdrawal or even get them into trouble.

What folk in the school would you tend to find walking [by] themselves?

"People who don't have much money ..."

"Ma friend cannae afford the blazer. He just has the school jumpers, but they don't have them any more. And our assistant head always stops him because he's got different jumpers on and he cannae tell him that he cannae afford it ..."

Parents spoke of going to considerable lengths to provide for their children. This could be one of the reasons why so many children are less aware of the intensity of poverty around them. Putting children first is an everyday reality for parents:

"There is always this odd thing you know you really want to get your kid. You know you really can't afford it. You can end up starving for a week but oh you are going to get it anyway."

"I think mums generally give up anything so that their child would have everything. I have sold stuff just to get more clothes for her or to get just little bit of extra for her."

The desire to provide for children leads many low income families into a spiral of ever increasing debt, particularly at Christmas time.

If you were going to go into debt, what would you go into debt for?

"The weans."

"The kids."

"Christmas presents."

The difficulty of living on a low income has wider ramifications. The stress of parenting on a low income creates tensions which - despite the best intentions - are acknowledged by parents to have an adverse impact on children's family life.

To overcome the unexpected shortages or spiralling debt, families and friends are often called upon to provide both moral support and support in kind. In this way, family poverty is a broader issue which places a collective shared burden on kin, community and neighbourhood.

Perhaps then it is not the immediate effects of poverty - material hardship and a lack of resources - that cause most distress to children. Rather, there is some evidence that the true cost of poverty for children is the knock-on effects of parents trying to manage poverty. As the example below illustrates, the stresses on one parent performing three part-time jobs, while the other parent is investing much time and energy establishing a family business, leaves a 14-year-old boy harbouring concerns for his parents' well-being, while himself feeling neglected.


Mum: "In and out of the door passing each other isn't it? And saying, 'Hi kids, bye kids'. It becomes quite stressful as well at home. And the guilt factor. I actually had a 14 year old who had a little weep at me a couple of weeks ago because he never saw me."

Dad: "He isn't exactly getting the support he deserves either because he has exams and she is working all the hours God sends. And I just started my own business six months ago and I am up to my eyes."

Herein lies a potential danger in the government's approach to tackling child poverty through welfare to work. Poverty is a problem that is about much more than disposable income. Without appreciating the emotional and relationship stresses of low income living and contemporary family life, there is a grave danger of merely substituting one set of stresses (24/7 parenting) with another (work-life balance management).

Although our research suggested that children do not dwell on the ways in which a lack of income shapes their lives, poverty affects children and its reduction is a worthy policy goal. However, there is also clearly a need for more work with children to explore their understanding of poverty and to fully appreciate the ways in which it affects their lives, and the lives of their families, peers and community.

- See Unicef Innocenti Research Centre, A League Table of Child Poverty in Rich Nations Innocenti Report Card No1, Unicef, Florence, Italy, 2000

- Research is £5 from Scottish Executive Social Research or free from Research report www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/social/lili00.asp (research report) www.scottishexecutive.gov.uk/library5/social/rotl-02.asp (literature review) and www.scotland.gov.uk/cru/resfinds/sjf6-00.asp (briefing paper).

- John H McKendrick, Kathryn Backett-Milburn and Sarah Cunningham-Burley are researchers at the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, University of Edinburgh e-mail crfr@ed.ac.uk website www.crfr.ac.uk.

About the research

This research, published by the Scottish executive as part of a series on family poverty,¹ involved 18 focus group interviews with 99 children and young adults with a diversity of work experiences, demographic profiles, experience of poverty, minority status, geographical residence, family background and life stage. This work built upon earlier CRFR research (The Socio-Economic and Cultural Context of Children’s Lifestyles and the Production of Health Variations) which explored children’s own accounts and experiences of inequalities and the way in which they may affect their everyday lives. available at www.crfr.ac.uk

¹JH McKendrick, Child Poverty, Scottish Poverty Information Unit Research Briefing 22, 2002 www.lapa.org.uk/Publications/SPIU%20Briefing%20Sheet%2017.htm