Background to the Research

• Recent research has warned that if the Government is to end child poverty by 2020, it will need to do more to help disabled children and parents. Families with disabled children are much more likely to experience poverty because of the higher costs associated with bringing up a child with a disability, and, in some cases, the loss of income involved when a parent has given up work to care for the child.
• The statistics produced from the HBAI reports are the government's main method of monitoring child poverty and are based on household income, including DLA as an income, but without any allowance for the extra expenditure associated with disability. The Department for Work and Pensions has resisted calls for adjustments to be made for disability in income analysis and poverty estimates. This research aimed to recalculate child poverty rates to give a truer sense of child poverty in NI.
  

Research Approach

• Using the Family Resources Survey 2006/7, on which the HBAI reports are based, DLA and AA were removed from household income, and the equivalent analysis re-run to produce revised child poverty rates for NI. In addition, 12 case studies illustrated the experiences of parents living on a low income and bringing up a disabled child, and some of the key issues for them. Four of these case studies are included in the report.
  

Main Findings

• Re-calculation of child poverty, with DLA/AA removed from household income, did not affect overall child poverty rates at the United Kingdom level to a great extent. However, at the NI level, removal of DLA and AA from household income resulted in a 2% increase in child poverty rates before housing costs were removed and a 3% increase on the conventional method after housing costs were removed.
• The revised child poverty figures indicate that, if DLA and AA are taken out of income, almost half of children living with a disabled adult are in poverty and almost two thirds are living below 70% of the median net equivalised income. One in five are living below 50% of the median income, indicating serious concerns about child poverty in relation to families with a disabled adult. The revised method of calculation also resulted in a 4% increase in child poverty rates for disabled children in NI when compared to the conventional method.
• The 12 case studies, which involved interviews with parents of children with severe disabilities living in low-income families in NI, highlighted a number of barriers and difficulties which they faced. These included social isolation for their children and themselves; a lack of services and support; a lack of social and leisure activities for their children; and the extra costs associated with bringing up a disabled child. The four example case studies included in this paper further illustrated the struggle some parents with disabled children have on a day to day basis when living on a low income.
  

Conclusions

• This research indicates that while many parents struggle on a low income, for families with a disabled child the struggle is even harder, as they cope with the multiple deprivations of disability and poverty. The quantitative analysis indicated that overall child poverty rates are underestimated by up to 3% in NI due to the lack of recognition of the cost of disability in the current HBAI methodology. The extent of poverty among children living with disabled adults is underestimated by as much as 9%. The cost of bringing up a disabled child is estimated as being at least 3 times as much as bringing up a non-disabled child, and the qualitative research indicates the major struggle that some parents have when trying to bring up a child with disabilities, and in particular those with complex needs.