Child Poverty And Inequality

Duncan Lindsey shows in this volume that it is possible to provide true opportunity to all children, insuring them against a lifetime of inequality. When we do, the walls dividing the United States by race, ethnicity, and wealth will begin to crumble.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. What matters most in how poverty shapes children’s wellbeing and development? How can data inform social policy and practice approaches to improving the outcomes for poorer children? Using life course analysis from the Young Lives study of 12,000 children growing up in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam over the past 15 years, this book draws on evidence on two cohorts of children, from 1 to 15 and from 8 to 22. It examines how poverty affects children’s development in low and middle income countries, and how policy has been used to improve their lives, then goes on to show when key developmental differences occur. It uses new evidence to develop a framework of what matters most and when and outlines effective policy approaches to inform the no-one left behind Sustainable Development Goal agenda.

The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.

The 21st century starts with vast inequalities for children in terms of income, access to food, water, health, education, housing, or employment for their families. Half of the world's children are below the poverty line of $2 a day and suffer from multiple deprivations and violations to basic human rights. More than 22,000 children die each day, and most of their deaths are preventable. This volume presents some of the critical acknowledged voices to move a necessary agenda forward. It explains multidimensional poverty measurements, describes current trends and presents policies to reduce poverty and inequality. Contributors include Armando Barrientos, Sarah Cook, Andrea Cornia, Sir Richard Jolly, Jomo K.S., Naila Kabeer, Nora Lustig, among many others.

Child poverty is a central and present part of global life, with hundreds of millions of children around the world enduring tremendous suffering and deprivation of their most basic needs. Despite its long history, research on poverty and development has only relatively recently examined the issue of child poverty as a distinct topic of concern. This book brings together theoretical, methodological and policy-relevant contributions by leading researchers on international child poverty. With a preface from Sir Richard Jolly, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, it examines how child poverty and well-being are now conceptualized, defined and measured, and presents regional and national level portraits of child poverty around the world, in rich, middle income and poor countries. The book's ultimate objective is to promote and influence policy, action and the research agenda to address one of the world's great ongoing tragedies: child poverty, marginalization and inequality.

Child poverty is rising across affluent Western societies; how it is measured is vital to how governments act to prevent, alleviate or eliminate it. While the roots of childhood poverty are fiercely debated and contested, they are all too often misrepresented in policy and media discourses. Seeking to redress this problem, Treanor places children’s experiences, needs and concerns at the centre of this critical examination of the contemporary policies and political discourses surrounding poverty in childhood. She examines a broad range of structural, institutional and ideological factors common across developed nations, and their impacts, to interrogate how poverty in childhood is conceptualised and operationalised in policy and to forge a radical pathway for an alternative future.

Childhood poverty has moved from the periphery to the centre of the policy agenda following New Labour's pledge to end it within twenty years. However, whether the needs and concerns of poor children themselves are being addressed is open to question. The findings raise critical issues for both policy and practice - in particular the finding that children are at great risk of experiencing exclusion within school. School has been a major target in the drive towards reducing child poverty. However, the policy focus has been mainly about literacy standards and exclusion from school. This book shows that poor children are suffering from insufficient access to the economic and material resources necessary for adequate social participation and academic parity. Childhood poverty and social exclusion will be an invaluable teaching aid across a range of academic courses, including social policy, sociology, social work and childhood studies. All those who are interested in developing a more inclusive social and policy framework for understanding childhood issues from a child-centred perspective, including child welfare practitioners and policy makers, will want to read this book. Studies in poverty, inequality and social exclusion series Series Editor: David Gordon, Director, Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research. Poverty, inequality and social exclusion remain the most fundamental problems that humanity faces in the 21st century. This exciting series, published in association with the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research at the University of Bristol, aims to make cutting-edge poverty related research more widely available. For other titles in this series, please follow the series link from the main catalogue page.

Report Card 9 The Children Left Behind presents a first overview of inequalities in child well-being for 24 Member States of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Report Card focuses on the relative gap between children in the bottom of the distribution with those occupying the median. Three dimensions of well-being are examined: material, education, and health. In each case, the questions asked are: how far behind children are being allowed to fall, and why some countries are doing so much better at protecting their most vulnerable children.