Written by:

Victoria Winckler
Director
The Bevan Foundation

 

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It’s a matter of weeks until schools break up for the holidays, and as they do so it’s worth pausing to think about the conditions that children in Wales are growing up in. I say this because new figures show that nearly one in three children lives in a family with a very low income, a total of 180,000 children.

Growing up in poverty can have a devastating impact on children’s lives. Children’s experiences of being cold, not having enough to eat or not going on school trips are felt deeply. They typically describe poverty in terms of embarrassment, insecurity, worry and exclusion rather than the material things they miss out on. But the effects of being poor go beyond how children feel. Poverty also affects children’s health, both physical and mental; limits their development and how well they do at school; and shapes their relationships with others, such as their parents or carers, teachers and other children.

Why should you worry?

Child poverty is a serious economic and business matter.  It affects your business or organisation as an employer. Children who grow up in poverty are much less likely as adults to have the qualities employers are seeking in their workforce. A much lower proportion of poor children have good GCSEs, and many fewer go into higher education, meaning that employers lose out on a big pool of potential talent and people face difficulty finding work. Children who grow up in poverty are at greater risk of chronic health conditions as adults, particularly chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.  As is well known, high levels of ill-health contribute to higher rates of sickness absence or mean that people are unable to work at all.

Child poverty also affects the size of your market. Families with very little disposable income are unlikely to be spending much on non-essential goods and services, while discounted brands are likely to be the choice for essentials. If child poverty in Wales was eradicated, there would be 140,000 more parents and 180,000 more children with spare cash – a market surely worth having.

The business-level effects of child poverty translate into a big hit on public spending. Research by Loughborough University found that child poverty costs the UK around £38 billion a year. Crucially, a substantial element of that bill is the loss of future earnings for the individual and a reduction in tax revenues for the Treasury, in other words losses that arise from lack of participation in the workforce. The cost of public services to address the consequences of child poverty, such as providing children’s social services or additional support in education, is also substantial.

What can businesses do?

Businesses, public bodies and charities have a vital role to play in eradicating child poverty. Contrary to the popular stereotype, more than three-quarters of children who live in poverty are in families where at least one adult is working. The poverty of these children is because their parents have jobs that simply do not pay enough to lift them above the breadline, either because the hourly rate is too low or because they work too few hours.

Many businesses support local anti-poverty charities, whether it be by donations of goods such as surplus food or household items or freeing up staff time to volunteer. Valuable though these actions are, they do not solve the problem. Instead, a redesign of working hours, pay, and terms and conditions would do much to help end the blight of child poverty.

To find out more about how you can work with the Bevan Foundation to help to end child poverty please visit www.bevanfoundation.org or email [email protected]