An attitude problem

Here’s a shocking statistic: in the UK, in 2005/06, more than one in five children are living in poverty (according to DWP data).

And here’s another one that some of you may find even more shocking: according to the recently published British Social Attitudes (BSA) report, 34% of you will think this is an inevitable part of modern life, and 27% of you will think that poverty is due to laziness or lack of will power (presumably on the part of the parents, rather than the children themselves).

This marks a considerable shift in opinions, as in 1986 only 19% thought poverty was due to laziness and lack of will power. According to the BSA report, this shift in views has occurred alongside declining support for redistribution of income from the better off to the less well off (down from nearly 47% in 1995 to 34% now).

This creates something of a policy problem for a government that has pledged to eradicate child poverty by 2020, as the redistribution of income is a key policy lever for reducing poverty.

ippr north is just one of several organisations in the North East of England that is involved with the Government Office for the North East’s plans to drive forward the eradication of child poverty in the region. While a number of the key policy instruments - such as tax and benefit levels - rest with central government that is not to say there is nothing that can be done at regional and local levels.

One of the priorities the group has highlighted is public perceptions of child poverty. A problem today is that the paths of the very rich and the very poor in our society rarely cross. We suspect that if there were better public understanding of what child poverty in UK in the 21st century looked like, then perhaps public attitudes would change.