Talk:Child poverty

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Does this not need a clean-up? It seems like a long list of unsubstaniated rants reflecting the writer's bias and lacks a decent definition. (Jim901 22:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)_

What is Child Poverty?
In 1999, the UK Government announced its aim to eradicate child poverty by 2020. There are also various campaigns dedicated to ending child poverty. That being the case, surely the most important questions this section should be answering are - what is 'child poverty'? And what would constitute ending it? I cannot find an answer to either question anywhere on the web. Almost everyone I have asked seems to assume that a child should be deemed to be 'poor' if and only if its parents are 'poor'. There are numerous definitions for ordinary (i.e. adult) 'poverty' - e.g. the common UK one seems to be that a person has an income less than 60% of the national average (one in five in the UK roughly I read). If this is what was meant by child poverty, it presumably gets to be ended either by removing children from poor people or by making poor people wealthier to the point that they cease to be poor. I hope that no-one is proposing the former solution, but the alternative isn't very compelling either. The only effect of it would be to give poor people the strongest possible motive to have children - and the poorer they are, the stronger the motive. Hardly sensible.

A cynic might argue that perhaps the real goal is not really to remove child poverty, but to remove all poverty. The fact that the campaigns are targeted at 'child poverty' rather than 'poverty' is purely a marketing and presentational gimmick (people being much more sympathetic to the children of poor adults than to the poor adults themselves). If that is so, this section should say so.

Of course the most likely answer is that 'child poverty' is not simply about being the offspring of 'poor' parents. It has a much more subtle and interesting definition, which explains why the goal of eliminating child poverty genuinely is quite different from the goal of eliminating poverty per se. Fair enough. But in that case, this section should very clearly state what child poverty is, and exactly what would count as eliminating it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.149.44.182 (talk) 20:54, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Rewritten Article
Pretty much a complete rewrite although a lot of work is still needed however. The previous article was basically a series of lists without citations, most of them were about poverty in general. I removed almost all the external links, uncited references, organisations and campaigns. Some of the reference section could go back in under further reading. I tried to separate child poverty from poverty in general and provide links to other articles when necessary. I am still lacking a few references for some of the claims and there are likely to be better references than I can provided.

Not sure what to do about Organisations and Campaigns. Do we put in any organisation that has anything to do with poverty, just ones focused on child poverty or not have the section altogether?

Here is the list of references that were provided with the article but not cited in the article Aircorn (talk) 06:31, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Atkinson, Anthony B. Poverty in Europe 1998
 * Betson, David M., and Jennifer L. Warlick. "Alternative Historical Trends in Poverty." American Economic Review 88:348-51. 1998. in JSTOR
 * Brady, David "Rethinking the Sociological Measurement of Poverty" Social Forces 81#3 2003, pp. 715-751 Online in Project Muse. Abstract: Reviews shortcomings of the official U.S. measure; examines several theoretical and methodological advances in poverty measurement. Argues that ideal measures of poverty should: (1) measure comparative historical variation effectively; (2) be relative rather than absolute; (3) conceptualize poverty as social exclusion; (4) assess the impact of taxes, transfers, and state benefits; and (5) integrate the depth of poverty and the inequality among the poor. Next, this article evaluates sociological studies published since 1990 for their consideration of these criteria. This article advocates for three alternative poverty indices: the interval measure, the ordinal measure, and the sum of ordinals measure. Finally, using the Luxembourg Income Study, it examines the empirical patterns with these three measures, across advanced capitalist democracies from 1967 to 1997. Estimates of these poverty indices are made available.
 * Buhmann, Brigitte, Lee Rainwater, Guenther Schmaus, and Timothy M. Smeeding. 1988. "Equivalence Scales, Well-Being, Inequality, and Poverty: Sensitivity Estimates Across Ten Countries Using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Database." Review of Income and Wealth 34:115-42.
 * Cox, W. Michael, and Richard Alm. Myths of Rich and Poor 1999
 * Danziger, Sheldon H., and Daniel H. Weinberg. "The Historical Record: Trends in Family Income, Inequality, and Poverty." Pp. 18-50 in Confronting Poverty: Prescriptions for Change, edited by Sheldon H. Danziger, Gary D. Sandefur, and Daniel. H. Weinberg. Russell Sage Foundation. 1994.
 * Firebaugh, Glenn. "Empirics of World Income Inequality." American Journal of Sociology (2000) 104:1597-1630. in JSTOR
 * Gordon, David M. Theories of Poverty and Underemployment: Orthodox, Radical, and Dual Labor Market Perspectives. 1972.
 * Haveman, Robert H. Poverty Policy and Poverty Research. University of Wisconsin Press 1987.
 * John Iceland; Poverty in America: A Handbook University of California Press, 2003
 * Alice O'Connor; "Poverty Research and Policy for the Post-Welfare Era" Annual Review of Sociology, 2000
 * Osberg, Lars, and Kuan Xu. "International Comparisons of Poverty Intensity: Index Decomposition and Bootstrap Inference." The Journal of Human Resources 2000. 35:51-81.
 * Paugam, Serge. "Poverty and Social Exclusion: A Sociological View." Pp. 41-62 in ;;The Future of European Welfare'', edited by Martin Rhodes and Yves Meny 1998.
 * Amartya Sen; Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation Oxford University Press, 1982
 * Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom (1999)
 * Smeeding, Timothy M., Michael O'Higgins, and Lee Rainwater. Poverty, Inequality and Income Distribution in Comparative Perspective. Urban Institute Press 1990.
 * Triest, Robert K. "Has Poverty Gotten Worse?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 1998. 12:97-114.

Added two new sections (Definition and Measuring Child Poverty). AIRcorn (talk) 08:02, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Second Rewrite
Though the previous rewrite was sufficient in some areas, this page continues to need significant improvements, even in addition to my own. I chose to provide edits to several sections due to their lack of information and more updated sources. Within the “Measuring child poverty” section, there was a lack of discussion of the Child Development Index (CDI) and the capabilities approach. The addition of a completely new section, “Prevalence”, was made in order to provide statistics on the global prevalence of child poverty based on several measurements. The section, “Causes”, was wildly incomplete in the information it provides, and the previous author made a few statements requiring citations. Because the section of “Effects” focused mainly on the subsection “Developing countries”, the “Developed countries” subheading needed improvement, for it lacked descriptions on some claims, included information that belongs elsewhere, and excluded other known impacts. The former “Policy Implications” section mentioned little about the possible solutions but rather merely advocated increasing awareness of the issue. I added several proposed solutions and policy initiatives with as little bias as possible. The use of the word “should” in this case will only apply to the policies themselves, not to people. I am not trying to advocate for these policies or convince people to fight child poverty; instead, I am simply trying to demonstrate what policies exist or are supported by others to combat child poverty.

Valerie.H.Le (talk) 21:55, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Additional Changes to Second Rewrite [Suggestions]
While the article has been improved in the ways listed above by the authors, additional edits are indicated.
 * 1. This article would benefit greatly from a discussion of education and poverty. Linking to this subsection of the main poverty article would be a good start.  A longer discussion of the debate surrounding the material benefits of education would be useful.  While some see education as a (and in some opinions, the only) factor that can ameliorate and mitigate poverty, there is an ongoing debate that education can serve to reproduce class inequalities through substandard schooling, tracking (into college vs. "general" or academic vs. vocational), or reduced opportunities for higher education.


 * 2. The issue of race might be woven throughout this article, though might best be located in the "Causes" section. Historic inequalities of racial groups will, globally, have effects on the opportunity structures of poor groups, families, and children.


 * 3. The "Developed Countries" section has been added to but is still lacking. The section mentions the long-term effects of poverty on boys (fewer working hours and lower eventual annual pay) but makes no mention of the long-term effects of poverty for girls and young women.  This would be an excellent place to link to the discussion of the feminization of poverty and cycles of poverty created when children are raised in impoverished homes.

User:LeahEdith (talk) 20:16, 13 September, 2011 (UC Berkeley)

the first picture the children from the first picture do not look very poor they look quite healthy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.22.41.123 (talk) 19:27, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

In the United States
I think this should be added to this article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21636723 - "Child poverty in the US has reached record levels, with almost 17 million children now affected. A growing number are also going hungry on a daily basis...." EllenCT (talk) 05:13, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I added this, but I'm not sure whether some of the things I put in "Prevalence" should go in "Effects/Developed countries" -- maybe both? EllenCT (talk) 07:14, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

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External links modified
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Creating a Page on Child Poverty in the United States
Hi, I feel that there should be a page dedicated to Child Poverty in the United States due to its substantial effect. Among other things, I hope to elaborate on the racial aspects of child poverty, the effects of it, and delineate steps taken and should be taken. If you would like to see my references or more details, please refer to my user page. --Mmemorablemoments (talk) 16:22, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I have decided to make this article. If you would like to see my references and details of the article, please check my user page for my sandbox. --Mmemorablemoments (talk) 17:42, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Gender Welfare and Poverty
— Assignment last updated by Shakaigaku Obasan (talk) 00:32, 29 September 2022 (UTC)