Ethnicity and child poverty

Abstract

Child poverty commands widespread national and international concern. The United Kingdom (UK) has established its ambitions to end child poverty, with interim targets for substantial reductions and an apparatus to monitor progress. However, the poverty of ethnic minority children has not been strongly emphasised within the child poverty agenda by means, for example, of specific targets for ethnic minority groups. This is despite the fact that children from minority ethnic groups are overrepresented among poor children. Ethnic minorities make up 12 per cent of the population and 15 per cent of children, but 25 per cent of children who are in poverty (authors own analysis of Households Below Average Income figures 2003/04 2005/06). That equates to 700,000 children, a number set to grow by 50,000 by 2010 (Sharma, 2007). All minority groups have higher rates of child poverty than the majority and the poverty rate for Bangladeshi children approaches two-thirds, compared to an average of one fifth. As these children become adults they will carry with them the consequences of childhood poverty and, to the extent that poverty is intergenerational, minorities may make up an increasing share of those in poverty in the UK. The greater risks of poverty faced by children from minority groups demand attention. Yet we do not know if policies to improve family incomes affect all groups evenly. Given higher chances of poverty across minority groups overall, are minority group families with children more responsive to policy levers to reduce child poverty? Or is poverty more intractable and severe are minority group children at risk of being left behind as other children are gradually lifted out of poverty? What are the implications for the future welfare of the UKs minority groups? At present we are not in a position to answer such questions. Appropriate policy responses to these greater risks require detailed investigation of the patterns of poverty by ethnic group. This report expands our evidence base by offering the most detailed, comprehensive and up-to-date account of ethnicity and child poverty to date. This report uses a multiplicity of approaches and sources to build up as detailed a picture as possible of how and why poverty varies across ethnic groups at the current time. It draws on data from 2002 to 2007 to give a contemporary perspective on child poverty and ethnicity. The report cannot provide a detailed analysis of trends and the impact of policy since the ambition to eliminate child poverty was originally declared, due to small sample sizes in annual data. However, the evidence from rolling averages of pooled data from 2002/03 indicates a marked decline in child poverty among those with the highest poverty rates, Bangladeshi children, and evidence of declines in poverty for Pakistani, black Caribbean and black African children as well. The implication is that minority groups have benefited from child poverty policy, but very large differences in poverty remain.