Childhood Poverty In The UK

The Impact of Childhood Poverty on Health and Education in the UK Poverty poses many problems to most countries, including the UK. According to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the poor in the UK are 21% of the total population (2016). The percentage of poor children estimated by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAC) in 2013-2014 is 28% of children (2016). These facts about poverty in the UK may look strange because the poor in the UK cannot be compared to the poor in other countries, where they are starving and dying out of infectious diseases. This is due to the definition of poverty in the UK, which is usually looked at as in relation to the typical standard of living in Britain. In his pioneering definition of poverty, Townsend

Although children's wellbeing in the UK has improved between 2004 and 2010 (CPAC, 2015), poverty still blights British children’s psychological development. This is due to the fact that children born to poor families do not have the privilege of eating healthy food; rather they live on junk, cheap food or food provided by food banks, and the latter may not contain enough protein. In addition, poor children may be living in bad houses not provided with heating because parents are forced to choose between food and heating (Hills, 2011). The results are catastrophic for poor children. For example, poor children suffer from chronic diseases, are potentially expected to be disabled, have a short life expectancy or even die at birth (CAPC, 2017). Poverty also affects poor children’s mental and psychological health negatively. This is because living in a poor family with a low income, debts and poor housing in addition to living in a disadvantaged community lead children to feel less confident and less optimistic about their future (Ayre, 2016). Other psychological problems for poor children in the UK include feeling isolated, having problems with their parents, and getting involved in asocial behaviour (Tomlinson, Walker and Williams, 2008). It is clear here that poverty and health positively correlate with each other: the poorer a child is, the less health he/she is, both physiologically and

First of all, poverty leads to poor children’s low academic achievement at all levels (CPAC, 2017). This can be attributed to many factors. For example. poor children do not have parental support because their parents are usually not highly-educated and do not motivate their children to achieve highly in school or provide them with books at home or talk to them about future aspirations (Van der Berg, 2008). In addition, poor children’s bad houses are not the best environment for learning because they may be cold and dark. Another outcome of poverty on poor children’s education is their weak participation in extracurricular activities in school, including after-school clubs, and performances outside the school. Sometimes, this is because poor children cannot afford the club or event fee even if it is 50 pence (Horgan, 2007). Even when some schools make these clubs or activities for free, poor children cannot attend them unless the event is close to their homes as their parents do not have cars to pick them (Horgan, 2007). Being unable to attend these social activities, poor children feel more excluded from their community and deprive them of a chance to develop their skills/talents. Furthermore, poor children cannot go to museums, art galleries, cinema shows, theatre performances, opera or talent shows, all of which help develop children’s knowledge of and awareness with the world and connect it to what children