As I’m working on two poverty-related projects at the moment,
one of which is aimed directly at the government’s consultation
on measuring child poverty, I was intrigued to read the Poverty
and Social Exclusion research team’s paper slamming the consultation
document (deadline 15 February), which it describes as being ‘of very poor
quality’.
The paper includes the PSE team's responses to the consultation. Given the tendency in some policy circles to try to associate poverty with certain kinds of family, and to distance it from the structural effects of policy decisions, I particularly appreciated this note:
Q21: Which experiences associated with family stability should be captured in a measure?
None. Again family stability is not a measure of child poverty. Neither is family structure. Most poor children live in two-parent families. There is a higher risk of child poverty in lone parent and cohabiting families but this is a function of our social policy in the UK…
