Developing a child-centric measure of child poverty

Gill Maingm544@york.ac.uk

International Society for Child Indicators conference 2011

Is there a need for a child-centric measure of child poverty?

If so, what is the best way to develop such a measure?

Does the measure add to our understanding of child poverty and its relationship to subjective well-being?

Research questions

Focus on English context

Policy review

Current definitions and measures of child poverty Relative low family income Combined low family income and (adult-defined) material deprivation Absolute low family income Persistent poverty (meeting above conditions for at least three out of the

previous four years) Very low income and material deprivation “A new approach to child poverty: tacking the causes of disadvantage and

transforming families’ lives” (emphasis added)

Policy tension between children’s ‘rights’ and children’s ‘best interests’

Policy context

Two main approaches to research on childhood: Developmental approach – focus on children as

adult-becomings New sociology of childhood – children as active

agents

BUT circularity in investigating poor children as active agents – tendency to pre-classify children as poor according to policy definitions and seek only the opinions of these ‘poor’ children

Research context

Focus of existing research

Poor families

Poor children

Purpose of this research

Children

Poor children

‘Poverty’ and ‘child’ both contested concepts.

‘Poverty’ difficult if not impossible to measure directly.

How to test construct validity of a new measure?

Tools used here: Relationship to existing poverty measures. Relationship to children’s subjective well-being.

Methodological difficulty

Selection of an appropriate approach to new child poverty measures

Focus groups with children

Pilot survey of parent-child pairs (300 pairs)

Mainstage Children’s Society survey 2010-11 (almost 5500 children 8-16)

Quarterly Children’s Society survey 2011 (2000 children, linked to parentally-supplied data)

Methodology

Key interim findings and decisions

Traditional measures of child poverty useful but flawed: Not good at picking up variation between children Weak associations with subjective well-being

Socially Perceived Necessities approach useful in gaining a direct picture of children’s material situation; items identified by children have some overlap with and some significant differences to items identified by adults

Children and adults provide very similar responses to objective poverty measures; more difference in responses to subjective poverty measures

Items identified by children

List of 20 items identified in focus groups. Reduced through pilot data to list of 10, based on scalability and strength of relationship to traditional poverty variables

10 items included in mainstage and quarterly surveys: Some pocket money each week Some money to save each month A pair of brand-named trainers An iPod or similar MP3 player Cable or satellite TV at home A garden or somewhere similar nearby to spend time safely Access to a family car Clothes to fit in with other people their age A holiday away from home for one week each year Monthly day-trips with family

All items associated with traditional poverty variables and subjective well-being; items form an acceptable scale.

Distribution of scores on the deprivation scale

Subjective well-being distribution

High likelihood of heterogeneity amongst those scoring 20.

Tobit regression of subjective well-being by poverty variables

Variable Demographics + poverty + deprivation

School year (6 as reference group)

8 -1.21** -1.48** -1.45**

10 -2.38** -3.21** -2.94**

Sex 0.64** 0.79** 0.71**

Family type (two parents as reference)

Lone parent -1.34** -1.58** -1.43**

Step family -1.20** -0.71 NS -0.51 NS

Other -2.37** -3.18* -2.97*

Free school meal receipt 0.05 NS 0.36 NS

Own bedroom -0.47 NS -0.32 NS

Some weekly money -0.53 NS -0.21 NS

Adults in paid work (none as reference)

One 0.49 NS -0.37 NS

Two 1.01 NS 0.07 NS

Three+ 0.35 NS 0.62 NS

Deprivation score (lacking none as reference)

One -0.89**

Two -2.27**

Three-four -2.90**

Five + -3.44**

r² 0.08 0.14 0.21

Logistic odds of being unhappy according to poverty variablesVariable Demographics + poverty + deprivation

School year (6 as reference group)

8 1.64** 1.87* 1.61 NS

10 2.43** 3.88** 3.10 **

Sex 0.59** 0.47** 0.48**

Family type (two parents as reference)

Lone parent 2.35** 2.98** 2.87**

Step family 2.52** 1.77 NS 1.61 NS

Other 2.72 NS 4.14 NS 4.01 NS

Free school meal receipt 1.06 NS 0.68 NS

Own bedroom 1.12 NS 1.09 NS

Some weekly money 1.45 NS 1.21 NS

Adults in paid work (none as reference)

One 0.75 NS 0.92 NS

Two 0.56 NS 0.75 NS

Three+ 1.10 NS 1.07 NS

Deprivation score

1 0.87 NS

2 2.59**

3-4 3.24**

5+ 5.37**

Nagelkerke r² 0.06 0.13 0.17

Logistic odds of being happy according to poverty variablesVariable Demographics + poverty + deprivation

School year (6 as reference group)

8 0.51** 0.49** 0.43**

10 0.27** 0.21** 0.20**

Sex 1.39** 1.47** 1.40*

Family type (two parents as reference)

Lone parent 0.61** 0.64* 0.62*

Step family 0.67** 0.80 NS 0.88 NS

Other 0.43 NS 0.25 NS 1.01 NS

Free school meal receipt 1.14 NS 1.16 NS

Own bedroom 0.82 NS 0.89 NS

Some weekly money 0.89 NS 1.01 NS

Adults in paid work (none as reference)

One 1.58 NS 1.66 NS

Two 1.79 NS 1.78 NS

Three+ 1.51 NS 1.57 NS

Deprivation score

1 0.64*

2 0.34**

3-4 0.26**

5+ 0.30**

Nagelkerke r² 0.93 13.2 0.19

Categorising families as poor Non-poor – neither no adults in paid employment nor

child receives free school meals Poor – either no adults in paid work or child receives free

school meals (12.5% of children) Very poor – both no adults in paid work and child

receives free school meals (2.5% of children)

Categorising children as poor: Non-poor – lacking fewer than 2 items (71.2% of

children) Poor – lacking 2+ items (28.8% of children) Very poor – lacking 3+ items (16.2% of children) Extremely poor – lacking 5+ items (5% of children)

Distinguishing child poverty from family poverty

Child poverty by family poverty

Overall Family non-poor Family poor Family very poor0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Child non-poorChild poorChild very poorChild extremely poor

% c

hid

ren

Happiness by child and family poverty status

Overall Family non-poor Family poor Family very poor0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Overall

Child non-poor

Child poor

Child very poor

Child extremely poor

Su

bje

cti

ve

we

ll-b

ein

g

When income quintiles are used

Overall Lowest Second lowest

Middle Second highest

Highest0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Overall

Not poor

Poor

Very poor

Extremely poor

Household income quintile

Me

an

su

bje

cti

ve

we

ll-b

ein

g

Child poverty does appear to be distinguishable from family poverty.

Variations in children’s subjective well-being are more associated with variations in poverty at the level of the child than poverty at the level of the family.

Treating poor children as a sub-set of children rather than a sub-set of poor families provides a different kind of insight into child poverty.

Using the socially perceived necessities approach can provide valid and reliable indicators of child poverty

This measure of child poverty explains all and more of the variation in subjective well-being that was previously explained by traditional poverty measures

Child poverty (or an absence of poverty) is useful as a predictor of both low subjective well-being and of high subjective well-being.

Summary

Child-centric measures of child poverty should be included in policy.

Targeting poor families does not guarantee targeting poor children.

Policies should focus on improving children’s situations in the present as well as educating them to become non-poor adults.

Despite policy focus on positive aspects of well-being, child poverty is as useful as a predictor of low well-being as it is of high well-being. Remedial efforts to improve low well-being should not be rejected in favour of efforts to promote high well-being.

Conclusions and implications