The Consequences Of Child Poverty

As mentioned by Ruane and Cerulo in Second Thoughts, harsh realities of poverty affect children’s lives in profound ways. Children lack any power in improving their circumstances and depend on adults to gain access to basic necessities. Access to proper healthcare, education, and basic nutrition continues to be an obstacle for children. Poverty impedes children’s aptitude to learn and contributes to poor overall health and mental health. Perhaps most important, poverty becomes a cyclical nature that is difficult to overcome. Children who experience poverty when they are young tend to experience persistent poverty over the course of their entire lives. According to the Child Welfare League of America, the national poverty rate for children

Poverty is often associated with Third World countries, where the outcome of such poverty is often death from disease or starvation. However this is the extremes of poverty, and is rarely experienced within the UK. Despite this poverty still takes place within the UK just at a lesser extent, however this does not take away from the devastating effects that poverty can have. This poverty can be attributed to having less money and lower living standards than others of the same society (European Anti-Poverty Network, 2009). Child poverty is a direct result of adult poverty (Poverties.org, 2011-2012) however unlike and adult, the experience of poverty for a child can effect later life drastically. In April 2011, there were 13 million people in the UK living below the poverty line, this included 3.6 million children (Department for Work and Pensions, 2011), and these numbers are expected to rise further (Child Poverty action Group, 2000-2012). This type of poverty does not discriminate, it is a direct result of inadequate resources.

The topic being addressed in this article is the changing association among marriage, work, and child poverty in the United States. There has been numerous research conducted on the importance of marriage and work and the link that it has to child poverty and the negative association that has been shown through research. However over many decades, there has been a transformation that marriage and work is no longer a negative association with child poverty. This study thoroughly examined the relationships between marriage, work, and the relative measures from 1974-2010 using 10 waves of the U.S. Census Current Populations Survey data from the Luxembourg Income Study. The influence of demographic characteristics that relate to poverty shows that marriage negative association with child poverty has declined whereas work’s negative association with child poverty has increased.

In the introduction of this essay we will be looking at ‘what is child poverty?’ Poverty is often associated with the third world and developing countries where death from starvation and disease is the outcome. This kind of poverty is rarely seen in the UK though. Child poverty is unfortunately a result of adult poverty with Child poverty having lifelong consequences. There are 3.5 million children living in poverty in the UK today, that’s 27 per cent of children or more than one in four (department for work and pensions, 2013.) Poverty in the UK is about a lack of resources, lack of capital both income and wealth. But it can also be resource poor such as; education and good health

It is known that the children are unable to determine their life circumstances, their families, and care solely for themselves without supervision. With this being said, children have little to no jurisdiction in determining the situations that they are confronted with. Most of the time when we ponder child poverty we think of low-income families or lack of food in the household, but it extends beyond that to “an environment that is damaging to their mental, physical, emotional and spiritual development” (“Children Under Threat,” 2005). Unfortunately, the prevalence of youth poverty in the United States may seem uncommon to those who are personally unaffected by the crisis; however, statistics show that 15 million children (21% of all children) live in families with incomes below the federal poverty threshold (Child Poverty, 2017). Moreover, when considering the demographics of impoverished children the following are true: a child in the U.S. has a 1 in 5 chance of being poor and the younger they are the poorer they are likely to be, and a child of color is more than twice as likely to be poor than a White child (Child Poverty, 2017). Research proves that poverty is the single greatest threat to a child’s well-being as it decreases the likelihood of a child graduating from high school, and it increases the chances of them becoming involved with the criminal justice system (Ending Child Poverty Now, 2017).

The health conditions the child has are very poor. Many people who live in poverty do not have a car and have to ride the bus to get to places. They do not

In the United States of America more than sixteen million children live in poverty. In the news today we notice many examples of poverty due to the lack of jobs. Job scarcity is a root cause for lower-income families. Poverty has a substantial effect on children: physically, mentally, and educationally.

Child poverty is becoming more of a big issue now more than ever in the U.K, with so many people unemployed and living on benefits. Children across the country are being deprived of basic living standards. The price of living is going up and it’s no wonder people are struggling to make ends meet. In my essay, I will talk about all aspects of how child poverty impacts greatly on children’s lives. I will talk about the effects poverty has on a child’s health, housing, education and social exclusion. I will also talk about how child poverty can be tackled, and the causes of child poverty with in the United Kingdom.

Child poverty in Britain affects an increasing number of families; the most recent statistics from 2014-2015 show that poverty affects 1 in 4 children in the UK today1. The cause of child poverty has many contributing factors and creates multiple issues for the individuals affected. Child poverty in Britain is much different than the television adverts that show the awful living conditions of children in third world countries, however still has devastating outcomes for those experiencing poverty. Our standard of living is much different and therefore we must compare poverty in Britain to the living standards that we are accustomed to in society today; this concept was introduced by sociologist Peter Townsend in 1979 who defined poverty as; ‘Individuals, families and groups in the population can be said to be in poverty when they lack resources to obtain the type of diet, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities which are customary, or at least widely encouraged and approved, in the societies in which they belong.’ 2

The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP), at the Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, researched children living in families who are barely able to afford their most basic needs, which is affecting children from infants, toddlers to adolescents. To transform the problem of child poverty, leaders and agencies need to implement policies that will improve the lives and development of children in low-income families, for the likelihood of their future success. The NCCP director of Family Economic Security, Heather Koball stated, “The anxiety, depression, and constant stress of being financially vulnerable leaves a lasting mark on children as they grow to adulthood, affecting earnings potential and health outcomes

Due to being in poverty, they are not granted the same opportunities as their peers due to funding, lack of cognitive and physical readiness and poor graduation rates. Socially, these children are below the curve due to circumstances that are out of their control. Being below this curve harder times making friends, due to their lack of cognitive readiness, difficulty getting a job, which is an effect of both cognitive and physical readiness depending on the position applied for. Finally, this social set back combined with the poor graduation rates is a recipe for a repeated cycle of poverty among

In economically developed nations such as New Zealand, poverty is conceptualised as “relative” rather than "absolute". The Solutions to Child Poverty report describes child poverty as: “those who experience deprivation of the material resources and income that is required for them to develop and thrive, leaving such children unable to enjoy their rights, achieve their full potential and participate as equal members of New Zealand society.” (Children’s Commissioner Report [CCR], 2012, p. 2.).

Child poverty can be defined as, children who have inadequate financial and material recourses that should allow them to flourish to their full potential (Boston, & Chapple, 2014). Likewise, it is those children who miss out on everyday actives that most New Zealanders take for granted (Boston, & Chapple, 2014). In result, this creates a burden on the child’s live as they generally develop mental, emotional and physical problems and offer full further into poverty (Giddens, 2009). Furthermore, along with those complications, more serious problems can arise once the child becomes adult. These problems include, limited educational qualifications, which in turn equals lower paid jobs

The presence of child poverty in New Zealand has been a long standing issue since before the 1990’s and continues to be prevalent in today’s New Zealand. Although child poverty can be linked to multiple causes, there is one major cause that is not widely discussed enough within the political world of New Zealand. This is the issue of structural inequality creating an unjust welfare system which perpetuates stereotypes and damages the support that beneficiaries are provided by our government. This, in turn, causes a stressful living situation for benefit dependent families, and creates an environment that is more susceptible to child poverty. With sufficient evidence, I will explain how structural inequality is linked to child poverty, and show what our government’s response has been to both of these issues.

You would like to believe that New Zealand, a well-developed country, is a great place for children to live. For most of us that is true however there is still a concerning amount of children who live in poverty. Since the late 1980’s and early 1990’s there has been an increase in child poverty of around 15 percent (Boston, 2014). Currently the New Zealand government spends up to ten billion dollars a year on attempting to solve child poverty and yet still as many as 25 percent of children, which is roughly about 270,000 children, currently live in poverty in New Zealand, (Expert Advisory Group on solutions to Child Poverty (EAG), 2012), (Boston & McIntosh, 2012). Poverty in New Zealand means experiencing hunger, food insecurity, reduced life expectancy, poor health outcomes, debt, inability to afford required medical care, unaffordable or crowded housing and not being able to fully participate in society (Haultain, 2012). This is an issue that urgently needs to be resolved as poverty can have some serious negative impacts on people’s lives. (EAG, 2012).