The many dimensions of child poverty: Evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study

In this paper we use a multidimensional framework to characterise child poverty in the UK. We examine the interdependencies amongst the di¤erent dimensions of multidimensional poverty, and the relationship of multidimensional poverty with income poverty. We also explore the links between multidimensional poverty, income poverty, and children’s cognitive and non-cognitive development. Our …ndings suggest that multidimensional poverty identi…es many but not all of the same children classi…ed using standard income poverty measures, although multidimensional poverty is rather more persistent over time than income poverty. Multidimensional poverty also has a detrimental impact on children’s development over and above the negative impact of income poverty. Keywords: child poverty; multidimensional poverty; income poverty; child development. JEL classi…cation codes: I32, J13, J62 1 Introduction and background The Child Poverty Act 2010 enshrined in law the commitment to end child poverty in the UK by 2020 in recognition of the widespread consensus that the implications of living in poverty are much more severe and lasting for children than for adults (Notten and Roelen, 2011a, 2011b). Children who grow up in poverty have poorer health and educational outcomes, both in the short-term and in the long-run (UNICEF, 2012). Growing up in poverty puts children at risk of permanent disadvantage, perpetuating an intergenerational cycle of disadvantage (Blanden et al., 2007, 2013). In April 2011, the Government published its Child Poverty Strategy (DfE/DWP, 2011)1 which re-iterated its commitment to reduce child poverty in the UK, but at the same time argued that income-based measures of poverty do not capture the full impact of poverty. It suggested that a wider de…nition of poverty may be more appropriate and relevant, and proposed 10 broader indicators of poverty together with the measures of income poverty from the Child Poverty Act 2010. In November 2012, the DfE/DWP launched its consultation on Measuring Child Poverty with its aim to develop a “multidimensional measure of child poverty ... wider than income alone to re‡ect changes across a range of dimensions ... that taken together, will re‡ect the reality of growing up in poverty in the UK today.”(p.15). The consultation suggested eight dimensions for consideration: income and material deprivation, worklessness, unmanageable debt, poor housing, parental skill level, access to quality education, family stability, and parental health. This recent policy debate on whether traditional income-based measures of poverty are really the best way of thinking about poverty, or whether the focus should be on what makes people poor, and what it means to be poor, is also re‡ected in the academic literature. It has long been stressed by scholars that individuals’well-being is intrinsically multidimensional (Townsend, 1979; Streeten, 1981; Sen, 1985) and there also now exists an increasing body of evidence in support of this view (Bradshaw et al., 2007; Tomlinson et al., 2008; Oroyemi et al., 2009; Nolan and Whelan, 2011). Consequently, societal measures of inequality and poverty should also re‡ect this multidimensionality. The poor themselves de…ne their well-being and 1DfE: Department for Education, UK; DWP: Department of Work and Pensions, UK.