The Trouble with Child Poverty

abstract: In research, in policy, and in the media, there is a clear focus on alleviating child poverty. Child poverty is cast as an urgent societal problem, in part reflecting recognition of the impact of early life circumstances on health across the life course. However, focusing on child poverty can have unintended consequences. First, calls to alleviate child poverty position children as a worthy investment in future population health, while adult poverty is represented as a misallocation of scarce resources. Second, children are positioned as blameless in talk about child poverty, whereas adults are viewed as potentially blameworthy for living in poverty. This ignores the ways early poverty shapes opportunities throughout the life course. These accounts are inconsistent: if a childhood of poverty shapes long-term outcomes, then poverty in adulthood cannot be an individual failing. Building arguments for poverty alleviation on social investment and personal responsibility ultimately supports rather than undermines the social structural arrangements that entrench inequalities. Recognizing the interconnectedness of families and communities and the destructiveness of poverty at every point in the life course has the potential to improve health in a way that can never be achieved by focusing solely on child poverty.