Listening to children: their contribution to anti-poverty policies
Children’s own accounts of what it is like to be poor can increase our understanding of the impact on families of living on a low income. Here, Tess Ridge argues that for anti-poverty strategies to be successful, we need to allow children’s own voices to be heard.

‘You can’t do as much, and I don’t like my clothes and that, so I don’t really get to do much or do stuff like my friends are doing…I am worried about what people think of me, like they think I am sad or something.’

Nicole, 13 years old

Childhood poverty
Why talk to children?
Current policy

Nicole is a thirteen-year-old girl living on a housing estate in an inner city area of Bristol. She is one of a group of forty children who were interviewed as part of a new forthcoming study of childhood poverty. [footnote 1] The study set out to develop an understanding of poverty in childhood that was drawn from the perspectives of poor children themselves, and provides an account of their lives that is grounded in their own realities and meanings. Nicole’s quote encapsulates many of the issues and concerns that children and young people raised during the course of the study. The perception that because she was living in a family on a low income she was at risk of being excluded from the everyday social engagements and interactions that constitute part of the social experience of being a child. These anxieties about difference and stigma are apparent in her fear of being left out, and of being seen to be different from her peers.

Accounts from poor children give us a valuable insight into the lived experience of poverty in childhood, and contribute to our growing awareness of the importance of gaining a meaningful understanding of how the experience of poverty impacts on people’s lives. This is particularly significant when thinking about childhood poverty and the impact of child poverty on children’s lives, both in the immediacy of childhood and in later adult life. The new policy drive towards ending childhood poverty requires a greater engagement and involvement with low-income children and young people if our understandings of what poverty in childhood signifies for children themselves are to be fully realised and incorporated into policy and practice.

Childhood poverty
There has been an increasingly sophisticated programme of measurement and assessment of children in poverty, and we now have a good understanding about which children are in poverty, and the impact of factors such as worklessness, family structure, ill health, disability and ethnicity on the likelihood of children experiencing a spell of poverty in childhood. This is supported by considerable evidence about the potentially severe outcomes of childhood poverty, including poor health, low self-esteem, poor cognitive development and low educational achievement. [footnote 2] However, there is far less evidence and a much poorer understanding of the processes and factors that may underpin this data, and the social and emotional impact that either a transitory or a chronic spell of poverty in childhood can have on the life of the child. These effects need to be seen both in the short term (outcomes in childhood itself) and in the long term (outcomes in adulthood). We need to know how children experience poverty in the immediacy of childhood among their peers in their most formative social years, as well as having a concern for the outcomes in adulthood.

The relational impact of poverty on children’s lives is a sorely neglected area. What evidence we do have comes in the main from studies that have involved adult’s perceptions of children’s needs. These show that children are particularly vulnerable to exclusion from items and activities perceived as socially necessary. Studies such as the Small Fortunes Survey [footnote 3] and Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain establish through research with adults a list of items and activities that are considered basic necessities for children in Britain today. Evidence from Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain using an index of socially perceived necessities, reveals the impact of poverty for children across a broad range of areas. This shows that one third of British children go without at least one item or activity deemed as necessary by the majority of the population, and nearly one-fifth (18 per cent) go without two or more items or activities. [footnote 4] The survey provides a particularly valuable insight into participation in social activities for children. However, valuable as these are, they all entail adult perceptions of children’s needs; there has been little engagement with poor children themselves about things which they would consider essential for their material and social well-being.

Children on a low income ‘begin to experience the reality of their ‘differentness’ at an early age’

The few studies that have involved low-income children and young people in poverty research reveal the considerable pressures that they experience in all areas of their lives. Family Fortunes [footnote 5] explores the economic pressures on parents and children in the UK, to provide a insight into the lives and experiences of children and their families. This was a seminal work in the field of understanding families’ management of money and the pressures experienced in households with reduced incomes. It reveals the social pressures that children in general experience from their peers, and how children on a low income ‘begin to experience the reality of their ‘differentness’ at an early age.’ These issues are further highlighted by two child-centred studies by the Children’s Society. Same Scenery, Different Lifestyle [footnote 6] highlighted the experiences of low-income children living in rural areas and found that they had a qualitatively different experience of rural life compared with their more affluent peers. Worth More Than This [footnote 7]describes the impact of poverty on young people’s physical and psychological health, their social lives and relationships and their education and aspirations. It is clear from these studies that engaging directly with low-income children and young people about their lives and experiences provides a valuable opportunity to gain a truer understanding of the social and material pressure that low-income children and young people face in their lives

The Government has shown a willingness to engage with children

Why talk to children?
For children, the impact of poverty is likely to spread across all areas of their lives, affecting their mental and physical health, their social relationships and their perceptions of the opportunities and choices open to them. Without an honest engagement with poor children that is open to understanding and acknowledging their different perceptions and meanings, we run the risk of overlooking or obscuring the very real and subjective experience of what it is like to be poor as a child. It is only recently that either researchers or policy makers have sought the views and experiences of children and young people. However, there is a now a growing interest within government and within research to understand how children are represented within the policy process and how they are engaged within policy and practice. There is also recognition that children and young people are not merely adults-in-waiting, but social actors in their own right, with their own issues and concerns. The Government has shown a willingness to engage with children and this is evident in a variety of consultation exercises with children and young people, especially ‘looked after’ children. Plus the involvement of children in the development of the new Children and Young People’s Unit and the administration of the new Children’s Fund. However, these are early days in the process of consultation and participation, and if the exercise is to prove fruitful, children from all walks of life need to be included in the process.

In general, people in poverty are rarely asked to contribute to an understanding or definition of what poverty means for them as a lived experience. This is especially so for children, whose lives and experiences, whilst currently very much in the policy spotlight have in general tended to be doubly obscured, both as children and as part of the ‘unheard’ constituency of the poor. As such their views and concerns have remained largely absent from both public policy and poverty research. Yet, without a more informed understanding of childhood poverty and its impact on children, policies designed to alleviate child poverty and improve the lives of poor children run the risk of failing.

Current policy
The value of engaging in meaningful interaction with low-income children is evident when we review the current policy environment. The eradication of childhood poverty within twenty years is now a central tenet of the current New Labour administration and policies directed at alleviating child poverty are apparent in many areas of policy. In general they have tended to focus on three main areas: support for children, primarily through the education system; support for parents, mainly directed at making work pay, childcare and parenting initiatives; and changes in fiscal support for children and their families through the tax and benefit system. Many of these policies reflect adult concerns, and the main policy thrust has been towards addressing adult worklessness through ‘welfare-to-work’ measures. The danger of social exclusion and poverty for children in childhood has appeared less often on the policy agenda; when it has, the focus has invariably been on children as ‘adults to be’, as future investments, rather than as children with their own voices and agency, their own experiences and concerns.[footnote 8] From a child-centred perspective there has been little acknowledgement that children and young people in poverty may experience very particular social needs which current welfare provision is doing little to address.

The Government’s use of poverty indicators to monitor the well-being of children is an important step towards ensuring that targets to measure the success of anti-poverty policies to eradicate child poverty are met. However, whilst we know a considerable amount about the outcomes of child poverty we cannot see behind these statistics. We know that poverty in childhood leaves children vulnerable to poor educational achievement and as a result poor employment opportunities in the future. But we do not have sufficient insight and information about the process of social exclusion and poverty. The importance for social well-being and social integration of the everyday social interactions between poor children and their peers, or the interactions between children and their parents, teachers or other adults with their care. These social connections and engagements help to shape the everyday experience of poor children.

Policies aimed at reducing child poverty have to engage with the experience of poverty in childhood itself

To understand the social and structural processes that drive the experience of poverty and exclusion, policies aimed at reducing child poverty have to engage with the experience of poverty in childhood itself, to do this childhood has to be valued as a social experience, with its own norms and customs. The new forthcoming study of childhood poverty reveals the difficulties children have ‘fitting in’ and ‘joining in’ with their peers. [footnote 9] Children’s perceptions of belonging and fitting in, and their capacity to take part in the social activities and opportunities that are available to their more affluent peers could play a critical role in informing some of the issues of difference voiced by children.

Government policies directed at addressing the issue of children’s disadvantage at school have been largely targeted at reducing school exclusions and improving literacy and numeracy. A reduction in the proportion of truancies and school exclusions is an important policy goal, but there is little evidence for an association between school exclusions and poverty; and school exclusions affect only a small proportion of pupils. Therefore although these are critical and important issues in children’s lives, the degree of social inclusion that children experience at school and at home is also vital. There is an underpinning assumption of parity of opportunity and experiences between children within school that is rarely challenged. There has been little interest or debate about the potential for education to be exclusionary and divisive between low-income children and young people and their more affluent peers. Inadequate participation and lack of opportunities may pose a far greater threat to poor children.[footnote 10]

A crucial focus for policies aimed at reducing poor educational outcomes should be an intention to explore and understand how poor children experience the school environment. A recent green paper from the Department for Education and Employment begins the process of acknowledging the structural disadvantages that poor children face at school by proposing new ‘pupil learning credits’ to ensure that poor children have the opportunities to go on school trips and take part in school clubs as their more affluent peers. These are only in their pilot stage and represent a small beginning in understanding some of the social pressures poor children might face.

Children’s lives are very diverse and poor children are not a homogeneous group, their experience of poverty will be mediated by many other factors including gender, ethnicity and age. Children in different circumstances will have their own experiences and concerns to relate, and their own perceptions of how poverty has affected their lives. An understanding of childhood poverty that is grounded in the lives and experiences of children is an essential part of addressing the intractable nature of child poverty and has the potential to add considerably to our capacity for addressing social and structural inequalities within childhood. Not least through a more informed awareness of the processes and factors that militate against low-income children as well as those that may serve to protect and support them.

Dr Tess Ridge works in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath

Footnotes
1. T Ridge, Childhood Poverty and Social Exclusion: from a child's perspective, Policy Press (Forthcoming 2002) [back to text]
2.See for example, J Bradshaw (ed), Poverty: the outcomes for children, The Family Policy Studies Centre, 2001; P Gregg, S Harkness and S Machin, Child Development and Family Income, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1999; J Hobcraft, Intergenerational and LIfe-course Transmission of Social Exclusion; influences and childhood poverty, family disruption and contact with the police, CASE paper 15, Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE, 1998 [back to text]
3.Middleton et al, Small Fortunes, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1997[back to text]
4.D Gordon et al, Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2000 [back to text]
5. Middleton et al, Family Fortunes: pressures on parents and children in the 1990s, CPAG 1994 [back to text]
6. J Davis and T Ridge, Same Scenery, Different Lifestyles: rural children on a low income, The Children's Society, 1997 [back to text]
7.D Roker, Worth More Than This: young people growing up in family poverty, The Children's Society, 1998 [back to text]
8. T Ridge and J Millar, 'Excluding Children: autonomy, friendship and the experience of the care system'. Social Policy and Administration 34(2), pp160-175, 2000 [back to text]
9. T Ridge forthcoming [back to text]
10. T Ridge forthcoming[back to text]

Poverty 111, Winter 2002