The Daily Life and Reality Behind Child Poverty in Sweden: Children’s and Adolescents’ Voices

Abstract

Today, approximately 12% of children growing up in Sweden are living in what could be defined as child poverty. Although the number of children living in poverty has slightly decreased during recent years, social exclusion and segregation between different groups in society have increased. The present study will shed a light on the reality of how children and adolescents living in poverty experience their daily lives. Analytically, the study explores how these experiences connect to different practices concerning child poverty. The study draws from an empirical and theoretical analysis of interviews with children and adolescents published in the Swedish Save the Children’s report At the margin. The daily life behind the statistics of child poverty [På marginalen. Vardagen bakom barnfattigdomsstatistiken]. The results reveal that lack of material and financial resources creates social stigmatization for this group of children and adolescents; they have fewer possibilities to spend time with peers, and this quite often also results in self-exclusion. The children’s and adolescents’ narratives also indicate the importance of the social role of the school, here in relation to the school providing nutritious school lunches and free packed lunch for school excursions.