United Kingdoms Social Policy with Reference to Child Poverty under the New Labour Government - Term Paper Example

 CHILD POVERTY Introduction One of the roles of the government is the formation of legal framework and approach towards various activities that affect the living conditions of its citizens. The formation and application of these legal frameworks present various challenges while at the same time managing to improve the affected person’s standard of living. The concept under which a government seeks to improve the welfare of its citizens by formation and implementation of various legislations and guidelines is referred to as social policy. To illustrate the concept in detail, this essay will focus on United Kingdoms’ social policy with reference to child poverty under the New Labour government. The essay will begin by illustrating why child poverty is an issue that needs to be addressed by the government. An analysis on the current state of the issue in the U.K will then be done in respect to the extent to which the government efforts have been successful. The gaps existing in the policy development will also be given. The evaluation will be guided by information sourced from various written policy documents and statements from key politicians regarding child poverty (Davies 2008). Child poverty can be defined as a situation where a household lacks adequate resources to live above a generally agreed lifestyle. The British government approached child poverty from four aspects which are enshrined under the 2010 Child Poverty Act (Preston 2008). Under the Act, child poverty is defined from four perspectives, namely: relative low income poverty, absolute low income poverty, persistent low income poverty and finally material deprivation. Under the relative low income poverty, a child is deemed poor if their family’s income is below 60% of the median income. Absolute low income poverty arises where a child’s family constaly holds an income of less than 60% of the median income for one fiscal year. The Act identifies persistent low income poverty as one where a child’s household lives on an income of less than 60% of the median household income for a period exceeding 3 years. Material deprivation is identified as a situation where a child’s household lives on an income below 70% of the median household income and undergoes suffering due to the challenge of inadequate income to spend on essential needs. The UK government uses relative low income poverty to define child poverty in the country. (Joslyn et al. 2005, p.191), notes that a government’s definition of poverty greatly determines the number of individuals that are regarded to as poor. According to a study conducted by the Department for Work and Pensions on income distribution 1994/95 – 2011/12, 1 out of every 4 children in the UK live under poverty. In summation, the number of children living in poverty in the country stands at nearly 3.5 million. However, the worrying trend is the fact that a gradual increase in the number of children living in poverty over the years. The statistical findings from the study however, established that the number of children living in poverty has dropped by 300,000 from the previous year (Gentleman 2013) . Nevertheless, the drop was attributed to the decrease in the average incomes in contrast to improvement of the individual’s welfare. To better understand the scope of child poverty in U.K, it is important to establish where the country ranks on child material wellbeing among some of the world’s most developed economies. Unicef conducted an assessment among 29 advanced economies to determine child material wellbeing in the countries. The assessment used several indices to determine the levels. UK was ranked 14th among the 29 nations with 10% relative child poverty rate. The report identified UK as to having 24% child poverty gap. Child over gap was defined as the disparity national poverty line and the median incomes for households below the poverty line. The assessment is important as it shows how deep the children are being allowed to fall below the threshold level. The evaluation identified only two countries with average child poverty gap below 15%. The report found that the average Unicef child deprivation rate stood at 5.5% thus putting the country among the top 10. Various studies conducted on child poverty have revealed that child poverty is common among particular types of households (Bradshaw 2003). These findings introduce new dynamic into the social policy issue of child poverty. Most of the children living in poverty were found to be living in households composed of couples while 40% of those living in poverty were from single families. Families with more than 3 children were identified to contribute 38% of the children living in poverty. To eradicate the problem, there is need for more research to be done to identify the dynamics of child poverty. Child poverty has many effects. One of the major effects of child poverty is financial costs. Child poverty has huge cost burden on the government with an estimated £25 billion per year lost in revenue forgone as well as the cost of dealing with the problem. Moreover, child poverty has been found to have a significant impact on the children’s performance in school (Bradshaw 2003, p. 164). Research has found that children from poor backgrounds get lower grades in school as compared to children from wealthy backgrounds. Achieving of low grades leads to lower qualifications and the children access lower earnings in their adult life (Gold 2012). Child poverty has been identified as to having a strong link to health complications. The occurrence of health complications to the poor leads to further loss of income which further propagates the vicious cycle of poverty. Reduced income to cover for health related matters leads to the reduction in the quality of life than the household lives. There has been increased government effort in reducing child poverty. This can be observed from the government’s establishment of the Child Poverty Act 2010 where several targets have been set and are expected to be reached by the year 2020. The first object is the reduction of the levels of relative poverty to below 10%. Secondly, the government aims to achieve less than 5% low income and deprivation rate. Third, persistent poverty is expected to be reduced significantly with no actual figure set. Fourthly, absolute poverty is projected to be reduced to levels less than 5%. Critics to tackling the problem of child poverty through income measures argue than tackling poverty extends beyond income. While acknowledging the limitation of paying too much effort in dealing with income levels, the government has adopted a twin-based approach in tackling the child poverty problem. The strategy is basically dealing with poverty from two dimensions, raising the incomes of individuals getting low incomes while at the same time striving to ensure improvement of other factors that have been highlighted to be behind child poverty (Burchardt 2008). . The broad approach adopted by the government aims at improving educational opportunities in the country. The move would provide more equitable employment opportunities among low income individuals thus improving their welfare. Parenting shortcomings were identified as one of the reasons behind the perpetuation of poverty among households. Some of the strategies adopted to improve parenting skills include: adults being urged to be largely involved in the education affairs of their children. There was also the provision of affordable childcare that ensure proper development of the children in their early life (Dornan 2008, p. 16). The governments also focused in the training of high quality teachers who enable the children build social skills and enable them better overcome social gaps. Under the leadership of the Labour, efforts were made to redistribute income. Improvement of life chances through initiatives such as Sure Start and Future Jobs Start. The programs were designed to improve both educational and parenting performance among households with low incomes (Henricson 2012). One of the major limitations of some of the measures aimed at curbing and mitigating child poverty is that they are biased towards income transfers. The strategies have been criticized for they are expensive to run. Due to this, alternative measures were suggested and the government gradually began concentrating on a different perspective while tackling child poverty. One of the alternative strategy solutions was for the government to enact policies that that targeted the improvement of the children’s life chances (Magadi 2007). Reduction in the emphasis on the relative objective in favor of absolute poverty would lead to a widening disparity between the bottom fifth members of the society and those at the middle income level. A research was undertaken in UK to determine the items that were considered vital for the voidance of poverty. The studies showed that there was a general consensus on the minimum living standards among people in a society which was based on the concept of relativism. To this end, the government should ensure poor children are provided with a minimum standard of living that was based on contemporary rather than previous lifestyles (Davies 2008 p. 93). The introduction of the National Minimum Wage in 1999 was essential in the improvement of child poverty in UK. Minimum wage creates a floor in the labour market where employers legally restrained from paying the employees’ wages below the quoted wage rate. The initiative was of great positive impact as it seals a loop-hole in labour regulation laws that employers formerly exploited (Platt 2005). As established earlier, children from poor household get to perform better as those from rich backgrounds. This results to the children getting lower grades thus condemning them to relatively less paying jobs. Employers of these individuals in turn exploit the labour laws and pay lesser wages to the employees. The government intervention measure helped improve the situation and to some measure was successful. According to The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission’s first annual report, State of the Nation 2013, UK has low social mobility as compared to countries with similar economic development levels. In this context, social mobility concept is referred to as the movement of households within the social classes. The report also revealed that the environment that a child is born to has a high significance on their destiny. Therefore, when a child was born into poverty, there was a high likelihood that they would lead a life of poverty (Gentleman 2013). Although the government has increased its efforts aimed at improving child poverty through increasing the availability of job opportunities, the opportunities at the professional jobs were most likely to go to individuals with a more financially stable background. The influence of family circumstances is still a major determinant on career development and progress even among equally qualified persons. According to the human ecology theory, there are five environmental systems that influence an individual. The theory points to microsystem as the most immediate group that influences a child’s development. The micro system is composed of the school, and family among others. The role the school and family in shaping a child can therefore, not be understated. Children from poor backgrounds are hindered from accessing recruitment opportunities through various constraints (Helm 2008). The constraints include the limitation to recruitment by firms to graduates, the lack of work experience and the existence of unpaid internship programs. The young people from poor backgrounds are unable to afford financing for the programs which would enable them increase their social mobility. Such challenges inhibit the progress towards eradication of child poverty (O’Hara 2014). Although the government’s measures to improve the people’s living standards through mitigating child poverty have had some positive results, there are four major challenges that continually hold more significant progress. The first challenge emanates from the challenge of rebalancing the economy (Hendrick 2003). To achieve this, more has to be done to stimulate social mobility. The second is the challenge of reducing monetary allocations to fund measures of improving the welfare of the poor in the society. Thirdly, there is an emerging trend in the labor market structure where young people are increasingly seeking temporary jobs. This has led to reduced earnings all together. According to the State of the Nation 2013 report, 2.5 million 18-24 year old adults are neither in fulltime job nor education. The last challenge is the macro-economic challenge of the rising living standards. This presents a problem where expenses outweigh the wages accrued. Analysis of the government’s response towards child poverty reveals that the approach used was paternalism. This is due to the fact that the government was involved in the regulation of the labour market by the imposition of the National Minimum Wage (Platt 2005). To further aid in the combat against child poverty, The Child Poverty Act 2010 requires the local governments to take up a more active role in the fight against child poverty. One of the ways is through granting the local authorities more authority and discretion in the allocation of financial benefits to low income households. The council is tasked with the authority to determine individuals who receive housing costs support. The Child Poverty Act has a provision that requires local authorities to conduct an evaluation of child poverty in their areas of jurisdiction and develop a publication outlining the strategies they plan to use to deal with the issue (Hirsch 2009). The plan is to enable the local authorities to develop innovative strategies for dealing with child poverty. The third measure is the bringing together of health and wellbeing boards with local authorities. The move is expected to facilitate the implementation strategies aimed at the mitigating child poverty and its accompanying detrimental health implications. According to the human ecology theory, environmental factors play a significant role in human development. Children who grow up in poverty are likely to be influenced by the poverty in their environment. The child is likely to undergo a myriad of challenges due to influence from the environment. The theory can be used to explain the statistical results from the Unicef report that found UK as the country with the closest link between children’s performance at school and their background of the family. The main causes of poverty can be attributed to emanate from alcohol and drugs abuse, poor parenting and high levels of unemployment. More to that, the Unicef report found that child poverty levels had increased to more than one child among four after the government introduced austerity measures .between the period of 2008 and 2012, child poverty levels had increased from 24% to 25.6% . According to the statistics, UK was one of the four countries that experienced increase in child material deprivation rates among the countries sampled in the assessment. In spite of the government advocating for the improvement of the situation, policy changes on taxation, welfare benefits and minimum wage has been detrimental in the reduction of child poverty (Preston 2008). More policies have to be made so as to ensure child poverty is dealt with from a broad perspective. In this respect, the government ought to consider raising the minimum wage and expanding the free childcare program. It is the role of the government to guarantee the social wellbeing of its citizens List of References Bradshaw, J. 2003, Poor children, Children & Society, 17, pp.162-172. Burchardt, T. and Zaidi, A. 2008, Disabled children, poverty and extra costs, in Strelitz, J. and Lister, R. (eds.) Why money matters: family income, poverty and children's lives. London: Save the Children. Davies, M. 2008, Stigma, shame and sense of self worth, in Strelitz, J. and Lister, R. (eds.) Why money matters: family income, poverty and childrens lives. London: Save the Children, pp.89- 95. Daniel, P. and Ivatts, J.2005, ‘Housing policy and children’, in Hendrick, H. (ed.) Child welfare and social policy: an essetinal reader. Bristol: Policy Press. On Moodle. Dornan, P. 2008, Ending poverty for all children in the UK, ChildRight, 247, pp.14-17. Gentleman, A. 2013, Ministers accused of downplaying income in measure of child poverty, Guardian, 15 October. Gold, T.2012, Too many poor and jobless? 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Magadi, M. and Middleton, S. 2007, Severe child poverty in the UK. London: Save the Children. http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/sevchildpovuk.pdf O’Hara, M. 2014,Austerity bites: a journey to the sharp end of the cuts. Bristol: Policy Press. Pages 76-85. Platt, L. 2005, Discovering child poverty. Bristol: Policy Press. Preston, G. 2008, Education and child poverty, in Strelitz, J. and Lister, R. (eds.) Read More