Child poverty in the UK: measures, prevalence and intra-household sharing

Gillian Main; Jonathan Richard Bradshaw

doi:10.1177/0261018315602627

Child poverty in the UK: measures, prevalence and intra-household sharing

Gillian Main, Jonathan Richard Bradshaw

Social Policy Research Unit

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

There is cross-party agreement on the urgency of addressing child
poverty in the UK, but less consensus on how to define and measure
it, and understand its causes and effects. The Conservative/Liberal
Coalition government’s policy and rhetoric favoured individual explanations
for poverty, portraying poor parents as making bad spending
decisions, and transmitting their attitudes and behaviours on to
their children. This article draws on the 2012 UK Poverty and Social
Exclusion survey (PSE2012) to examine how far the realities of life for
poor children match these explanations. Analysis covers four strands:
the prevalence of child poverty; the demographics of poor children;
the experiences of poor children; and how parents in poverty allocate
household resources. Little evidence is found to support this ‘culture
of poverty’ theory, and parents who are themselves in poverty are
found to engage in a range of behaviours suggesting they sacrifice
personal necessities to provide for children.

Original language	English
Article number	1
Pages (from-to)	1-24
Number of pages	24
Journal	Critical Social Policy
Volume	36
Issue number	1
Early online date	7 Dec 2015
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018315602627
Publication status	Published - 1 Feb 2016

Bibliographical note

Keywords

poverty
children
Measurement

Access to Document

10.1177/0261018315602627

Child poverty in the UK ACCEPTED
© The Author(s) 2015.
Accepted author manuscript, 437 KB

http://csp.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/12/07/0261018315602627.full.pdf?ijkey=AzV021azuo3A5Oq&keytype=finite

Cite this

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abstract = "There is cross-party agreement on the urgency of addressing childpoverty in the UK, but less consensus on how to define and measureit, and understand its causes and effects. The Conservative/LiberalCoalition government{\textquoteright}s policy and rhetoric favoured individual explanationsfor poverty, portraying poor parents as making bad spendingdecisions, and transmitting their attitudes and behaviours on totheir children. This article draws on the 2012 UK Poverty and SocialExclusion survey (PSE2012) to examine how far the realities of life forpoor children match these explanations. Analysis covers four strands:the prevalence of child poverty; the demographics of poor children;the experiences of poor children; and how parents in poverty allocatehousehold resources. Little evidence is found to support this {\textquoteleft}cultureof poverty{\textquoteright} theory, and parents who are themselves in poverty arefound to engage in a range of behaviours suggesting they sacrificepersonal necessities to provide for children.",

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