Child poverty rate doubles

A report for the United Nations published yesterday revealed child poverty is rising steadily across the world’s richest nations - and can only be tackled by targeted government efforts to boost incomes of the poorest families.

It painted a bleak picture, with poverty levels worsening in 17 of 24 industrialised nations over the last decade.

The report singled out the UK as one of only four developed countries where there has been a significant fall in child poverty rates - 3.1 per cent - over the last ten years.

It concluded that Britain is on course to reach its first target, set in 1999, of a 25 per cent reduction by 2004-5.

However, the report also showed that even in countries such as the United States and Britain where poverty is on the decline, overall rates remain high.

The proportion of children living in poverty - defined as households with income per head below 50 per cent of the national median income - is now 15.4 per cent of UK population. This compares to 7 per cent in 1979.

Child policy experts and campaigners warned that much more has to be done if the British government is to reach its goal of eradicating the problem by 2020.

Professor Jonathan Bradshaw, of the University of York’s department of social policy, and an adviser to the Scottish Parliament on the issue, said: "Britain is moving up the league. It is doing considerably better than before. But child poverty rates are still twice the level they were in 1979. We’ve still got a hell of a job to get it back to those levels."

Prof Bradshaw said the report showed that "policy matters."

He said: "Countries with high social spending have low poverty rates. In the UK, half the children in poverty have parents who are not in employment. To get them out of poverty, you have to increase the level of benefits. To do that you have to increase taxation."

John Dickie, the head of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, said the report showed positive action worked.

He said: "It makes clear that government action can make the difference, particularly action that increases social spending on child and family benefits. In a week where free school meals are once again on the Scottish political agenda, this is an important message."

But he added: "We have still got a long, long way to go before we can congratulate ourselves. The government at Westminster and Holyrood need to push further and harder if we are going to eradicate it by 2020."

One million people live below the poverty line in Scotland, of whom 280,000 are children. But Mr Dickie said that, in contrast to England and Wales, where most poor children have parents on benefits, over half of poor children in Scotland have a parent who is in low-paid employment.

The government has set a target of halving child poverty by 2010 - and eradicating it by 2020.

The definition of poverty used by the report, that is living in households with income per head at 50 per cent or less of the national average for their country, is calculated to include the "proportion of children whose access to economic resources falls so far below the norm for their societies, they cannot afford the things those around them consider to be normal".

The report, Child Poverty In Rich Countries, revealed that one of the world’s richest countries - the United States - is at the bottom of the league table, alongside Mexico - while Scandinavian countries seem to have the problem under control.

The authors stated: "No matter which of the commonly used poverty measures is applied, the situation of children is seen to have deteriorated over the last decade."

They focused mainly on 24 of the wealthiest nations around the globe, or 26 where data was available.

David Bull, UNICEF’s executive director, said: "Poverty can blight children’s lives for future generations. It is behind problems such as teenage pregnancies, substance abuse, criminality and unsociable behaviour."

The report identified three forces - social trends, labour market conditions and government policies - as the key determinants of child poverty rates. The rise in the average age of parents, the educational age of mothers and the proportion of mothers in work, tended to increase the economic resources available to children.

But the decline in earnings for fathers, particularly at the bottom end of the income scale, will significantly increase the risk of higher numbers of children growing up poor.

A spokesperson for the Department of Work and Pensions said: "This report confirms that this government has succeeded in arresting and reversing the long-term trend of rising child poverty and is broadly on track to meet its target to reduce the number of children in relative low-income households by a quarter between 1998-9 and 2004-5, and halving it by 2010.

"However, we acknowledge there is still much more to be done."