Background to the Research

• Within the United Kingdom, child poverty emerged as a major policy initiative in 1999 when the Labour government pledged the eradication of child poverty by the year 2020 with interim targets of a reduction by half by the year 2010 and by a quarter by the year 2004.
• This paper provides the key findings from the research report The Bottom Line: Severe Child Poverty in Northern Ireland (Monteith and McLaughlin, 2004), commissioned by Save the Children to examine the extent and circumstances of children living in severe poverty.

Research Approach

• The research was completed by a secondary analysis of the PSENI survey. Adelman et al (2003) explored the use of a number of poverty measures in order to determine the best method of measuring severe child poverty. Their report investigated three poverty measures: low level of household income, child deprivation and parental deprivation. They subsequently defined severe child poverty as children who were poor on all three measures.
• This report has adopted Adelman et al's definition of severe child poverty and their methodology is replicated here, as far as possible, to produce comparable NI data using the Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey in NI.
  

Main Findings

• The same proportion of children (8%) in both NI and Great Britain were considered severely poor. Extrapolating these results to the whole population of children in NI who were under 16 years, this would indicate that approximately 32,000 children were living in severe poverty.
• In NI, children who were living in severe poverty in 2002/3 were most likely to be: living in households with no workers (70%); living with a lone parent (51%); living in public sector housing (57%); whose parents have no qualifications (54%); living in large families (24% of severely poor children lived in families with four or more children); have parents with health problems or disabilities (27%); or were disabled children (14%).
• In NI, the evidence suggested that severely poor children are going without some very important items, deemed as necessities, due to a lack of money. Worryingly high proportions of children who were poor on all three measures (i.e. severely poor children) were going without the following basic necessities:
  • meat, fish or a vegetarian equivalent at least twice a day (22% of severely poor children);
  • fresh fruit and vegetables at least once a day (20% of severely poor children);
  • three meals a day (14% of severely poor children);
  • a comic or magazine once a week (52% of severely poor children);
  • educational games (23% of severely poor children);
  • new clothes when needed (42% of severely poor children);
  • new not second hand clothes (29% of severely poor children).
    
• Many parents of severely poor children lacked enough money to replace worn furniture (93%), or to replace or repair broken electrical goods (93%).
• Similarly a lack of finance meant that many parents did not have regular savings (92 %), access to a decent pension (75%), or a small amount of money to spend on themselves (92%).
• Almost nine out of 10 severely poor children in NI had parents who worry all the time about household finances (compared to one in two non-severely poor children and one in 10 non-poor children).
• Children living in severe poverty were also much more likely to live in families which were seriously behind with key payments. One in four severely poor children lived in households which were late with their electricity payments, one in three severely poor children lived in families who were late with catalogue payments and one in five severely poor children had parents who were behind with hire purchase payments
• Children living in severe poverty in NI were four times more likely to be excluded from going on family day trips, three times more likely to be unable to have friends round for tea or a snack fortnightly, twice as likely to lack a hobby or leisure activity or to have sports gear or leisure equipment, and almost twice as likely to miss out on an annual holiday away from home compared to children living in non-severe poverty. Compared to children who were not poor, these differences are much greater.
• Examining the provision of services, of particular concern was the exclusion experienced by severely poor children from a range of vital children's services such as safe play areas, after school clubs and youth clubs which were lacking for 37%, 23% and 12% of severely poor children respectively.

The full report 'The Bottom Line: Severe Poverty in Northern Ireland', which also outlines key policy implications of these findings, can be obtained from Save the Children, Popper House, 15 Richmond Park, Belfast, BT10 0HB, telephone: 028 90431123.

References

Adelman, L., Middleton, S. and Ashworth K. (2003) Britain's Poorest Children: Severe and Persistent Poverty and Social Exclusion. London: Save the Children.

Hillyard, P., Kelly, G., McLaughlin, E., Patsios, D. and Tomlinson, M. (2003) Bare Necessities: Poverty and Social Exclusion in Northern Ireland - Key Findings. Belfast: Democratic Dialogue.