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Child Poverty

Issue date

3. Child Poverty

According to the campaign to End Child Poverty, four million children - one in three - live in poverty. In some local authorities the figure is much higher: more than one in three children in Leicester, Liverpool, Middlesborough, Nottingham, Manchester and nearly everywhere in inner London. Over half the children in Tower Hamlets are poor. End Child Poverty has produced a map of child poverty in the UK that shows where child poverty is concentrated - and that these are the local authorities that have suffered the worst cuts in funding from central government.

The TUC believes there is an 'Iron Triangle' connecting insecure and vulnerable work, women's poverty and child poverty. Children are disproportionately likely to be poor:

Proportion of
whole population

Proportion of
poor

Children

22%

30%

Adult women

40%

38%

Adult men

38%

33%

A majority of poor children live in families where at least one of the adults has a job. Working women are far more likely than men to be in low paid jobs and women are also far more likely to work in poorly paid part-time jobs - more than three quarters of part-time workers are women. Another essential link between low pay, women's poverty and child poverty is the employment discrimination that many mothers face. Mothers in Britain are far more likely to be poor than anywhere else in Europe and from the moment they conceive a child women face immediate financial penalties - thousands lose their jobs and many more face disadvantage and reduced opportunities in the workplace. After having a child, many mothers become trapped in part-time, low-paid and low status work. They are more likely to be in insecure jobs as temporary or home workers, where they have fewer employment rights.

This means that fighting child poverty, fighting women's poverty and fighting in-work poverty are inter-linked and the TUC support the End Child Poverty campaign for 'jobs you can raise a family on.'


Click here to read part 4 - What effect do taxes and benefits have? (What the government does/plans)

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