At the top of child poverty leagueare Denmark and Finnland with child poverty rates of less than 3 per cent. At the bottom are the USA and Mexiko, with child poverty rates of more than 20 per cent.
Over than the last 10 years period for weich comperable data are available, ...
(Show more)At the top of child poverty leagueare Denmark and Finnland with child poverty rates of less than 3 per cent. At the bottom are the USA and Mexiko, with child poverty rates of more than 20 per cent.
Over than the last 10 years period for weich comperable data are available, the proportion of children living in poverty has risen in 17 out of OECD countries.
Higher goverment spending on family and social benefits is clearly associated with lower child poverty rates.
Four out of 13 OECD countries for which 1990s data are avialable saw a decline in earnings for the lowest –paid 25 per cent of farthers. Seven countries saw a decline in earnings for the lowest- paid 10 per cent.
On average, government interventions reduce by 40 per cent the rates of child poverty that would theoretically result from market forces being left to themselves.
Government in countries with the world’s lowest level of child poverty reduce market poverty by 80 per cent or more. Governments in the countries with world’s highest poverty rates reduce market poverty by only 0 per cent to 15 per cent.
Variation in govenrment policy appears to account for the most of variation in child poverty levels between OECD countries.
Int he most countries , increases in social spending over the decade of the 1990s appear to have been allocated mainly to pensions and to health care.
Poverty levels are result of complex and sometimes difficult- to-predict interplay between government policy, family efforts, labour market conditions, and the wider forces of social change. It is therefore essential to have an up-to-date and evidence- based awareness of how government policy plays out int he real world.
Over the last two centuries, much progress have been made towards the idea that every child ought to have the chance to be all that he or she could be, and that the opportunities of life ought not to be determined by the circumstances of birth.
But the evidence of both social statistics and everyday experience indicates that those who grow up in poverty are at the marked and measurable disadvantage. No-one would suggest that this is in some way the fault of children concerned. High rates of child poverty are therefore an unambiguous contradiction of equality and opportunity.
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