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May 2011 the BREADTH of CHILD POVERTY IN UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre Innocenti Working Paper THE BREADTH OF CHILD POVERTY IN EUROPE: AN INVESTIGATION INTO OVERLAP AND ACCUMULATION OF DEPRIVATIONS Keetie Roelen and Geranda Notten IWP-2011-04 May 2011 i Innocenti Working Papers UNICEF Innocenti Working Papers are intended to disseminate initial research contributions within the Centre‟s programme of work, addressing social, economic and institutional aspects of the realisation of the human rights of children. The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or the views of UNICEF. The designations employed in this publication and the presentation of the material do not imply on the part of UNICEF the expression of any opinion whatsoever concerning the legal status of any country or territory, or of its authorities, or the delimitation of its frontiers. Extracts from this publication may be freely reproduced with due acknowledgement. © 2011 United Nations Children‟s Fund (UNICEF) ISSN: 1014-7837 Readers citing this document are asked to use the following form: Roelen, Keetie and Geranda Notten (2011), „The Breadth of Child Poverty in Europe: An investigation into overlap and accumulation of deprivations‟ Innocenti Working Paper No. 2011- 04. Florence, UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre. ii UNICEF INNOCENTI RESEARCH CENTRE The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy, was established in 1988 to strengthen the research capability of the United Nations Children‟s Fund and to support its advocacy for children worldwide. The Innocenti Research Centre (formally known as the International Child Development Centre) generates knowledge and analysis to support policy formulation and advocacy in favour of children; acts as a convener and catalyst for knowledge exchange and strategic reflections on children‟s concerns; and supports programme development and capacity- building. Innocenti studies present new knowledge and perspectives on critical issues affecting children, informing current and future areas of UNICEF‟s work. The Centre‟s publications represent contributions to a global debate on child rights issues, and include a range of opinions. For that reason, the Centre may produce publications that do not necessarily reflect UNICEF policies or approaches on some topics. The Centre collaborates with its host institution in Florence, the Istituto degli Innocenti, in selected areas of work. Core funding for the Centre is provided by the Government of Italy and UNICEF. Additional financial support for specific projects is provided by governments, international institutions and private sources, including by UNICEF National Committees, as well as by UNICEF offices in collaborative studies. For further information and to download or order this and other publications, please visit the IRC website at http://www.unicef-irc.org Correspondence should be addressed to: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre Piazza SS. Annunziata, 12 50122 Florence, Italy Tel: (+39) 055 20 330 Fax: (+39) 055 2033 220 Email: [email protected] iii iv The Breadth of Child Poverty in Europe: An investigation into overlap and accumulation of deprivations Geranda Notten a and Keetie Roelen b a University of Ottawa <[email protected]> b Keetie Roelen, Institute of Develpoment Studies, Centre for Social Protection <[email protected]> Summary: Moral, efficiency, and rights-based arguments have sparked widespread acknowledgement in both academic and policy circles that children deserve a special focus in poverty measurement. The European Union (EU) is amongst those bodies that have recognized the need for child-focused indicators in monitoring poverty and social exclusion and is currently in the process of developing, testing and comparing single indicators of child well-being across member states. In this paper we seek to add to this debate by providing a micro-analysis of the breadth of child poverty in the European Union, considering both the degree of overlap and accumulation of deprivations across monetary and multidimensional indicators of poverty. The objective of this paper is to conduct an overlap analysis of child deprivation in the EU to gain insight into the breadth of child poverty and degree of overlap between measures of monetary and multidimensional poverty. Particular attention will be paid to investigate cross-country and cross-domain differences. Using the 2007 wave of the EU-SILC data, we compare the European Union (EU) monetary 'at-risk-of- poverty' indicator to a range of child deprivation indicators at domain level in four EU Member States (Germany, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom). Overall, the paper‟s findings provide a strong call for the need to take a multidimensional approach towards the measurement of child poverty in the EU context. Keywords: cumulative deprivation, poverty measurement, multidimensional poverty, child poverty, European Union Acknowledgments: This paper was prepared as part of an EU-SILC research undertaken with the affiliation of Maastricht Graduate School of Governance, Maastricht University. The research for this specific paper received the financial support of UNICEF IRC. We would like to thank Marie-Hélène L'Heureux, Jessica Breaugh, Julie Charest, Genie Wu and Kirsten Davis for their contributions to this research project. Any remaining errors and omissions are the authors‟ sole responsibility. The statements in this paper are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or the views of UNICEF and of their own respective affiliations. v Contents 1. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………..………………..………….1 2. CHILD POVERTY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION……………………………………..………………2 3. METHODOLOGY………………………………………………………………………………..……...4 4. BREADTH AND ACCUMULATION OF POVERTY AND DEPRIVATION…………………….…..7 5. CHILD POVERTY PROFILES……………………………………………………………….………..16 6. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………………….…...21 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………………….23 ANNEX 1…………………………………………………………………………………………….……27 ANNEX 2…………………………………………………………………………………………….……29 vi 1. INTRODUCTION Recent years have witnessed widespread acknowledgement in both academic and policy circles that children deserve a special focus in poverty measurement (Ben-Arieh, 2000; Minujin et al, 2005; Roelen, Gassmann and Neubourg de, 2009b). The case for a child focus in poverty and development debates can be made on moral, rights and efficiency based grounds. It is now widely recognized that children have different basic needs from adults and are harder hit, both in the short- and long-term, when their basic needs are not met. Children growing up in a poor or low-income family are more likely to receive poorer health care, to obtain lower educational outcomes and to reach lower levels of attainment in the labour market (Haveman and Wolfe, 1995; Brooks-Gunn and Duncan 1997; Duncan and Brooks-Gunn, 1997; Esping-Andersen, 2002). Malnutrition, lack of health care and low levels of education during infancy and childhood have far-reaching and long-lasting detrimental consequences (Haveman and Wolfe, 1995; Brooks-Gunn and Duncan 1997; Duncan and Brooks-Gunn, 1997), which do not only impact the child as an individual but the society as a whole (Esping-Andersen, 2002). Jones and Sumner (2011) point towards the ‘differential experience’ of poverty in childhood, setting their situation apart from adults as well as from other children depending on their life-stage. This distinct situation of children calls for a specific focus in policy and poverty debates as they appeal to moral obligations to provide children with basic needs, declarations of human and children‟s rights to secure the entitlement to basic living conditions and to efficiency arguments as childhood presents a unique window of opportunity for human capital investment. The European Union (EU) has also acknowledged the need for such child-focused indicators in monitoring poverty and social exclusion (Bradshaw et al., 2006; European Community, 2008) and is currently in the process of developing, testing and comparing single indicators of child well-being across member states (European Commission, 2008). This paper aims to add to this debate by providing a micro-analysis of the breadth of child poverty in the European Union, considering both the degree of overlap and accumulation of deprivations across monetary and multidimensional indicators of poverty. There is now widespread evidence that there is limited overlap, and thus considerable mismatch, between different measures of poverty (Bradshaw and Finch, 2003; Perry, 2002; Wagle, 2009). This notion does not merely have implications for the academic debate, but also for the use of poverty approaches in the policy sphere and the formulation of policy responses (Roelen, Gassmann and Neubourg de, 2009b; Ruggeri Laderchi, Saith and Stewart, 2003). This paper aims to investigate the extent of mismatch 1 with respect to monetary and multidimensional indicators of child poverty in the EU and to consequently address its implications for the policy debate. In sum, the objective of this paper is to conduct an overlap analysis of child deprivation in the EU to gain insight into the breadth of child poverty and the degree of overlap between measures of monetary and multidimensional poverty. Particular attention will be paid to investigate cross-country and cross-domain differences. The paper will be structured as follows: firstly, we provide an overview of the remit of child
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