The troubling issue of child poverty

On June 15, 2017, UNICEF published a report that stated that one-fifth of the children living in countries that are wealthy, survive in comparative poverty. The study further stated that there is basically no connection between a child’s well-being and the wealth of a country. A comparative look at 41 high income countries in the world, shows that issues regarding the quality of life where children are concerned can by gauged by measuring the different components like mental health, education, alcohol abuse and the economic and living status. The results of the study, to say the least are troubling as a generation of children who are growing up poor could damage the future of the country.

It was also found that ‘even in high-income countries, progress does not benefit all children,’ as per the UNICEF’s director of Innocenti, Sarah Cook. Surprisingly, the United States and New Zealand were named among the countries that were said to have poor performance and ranked 37 and 41 respectively. In the U.S., the biggest issues that were found were poverty, education, hunger, health and inequality. Coming to New Zealand, it was on the issues of adolescent mental health that it scored poorly. Their position on the UNICEF list could be improved considerably if they invested in greater access to the healthcare of adolescents, mainly mental health care.

Statistics say that twenty-two percent of children in America lived in poverty in the year 2013. Worryingly, as per the latest Kids Count Data Book, the figure in 2008 was 18%.The Annie E. Casey Foundation, the organization that compiled the report, thought the figures were ‘especially troubling,’ and there were concerns that children would increasingly be growing up in a neighbourhood that was very poor.

We don’t really need research to tell us that poverty has a detrimental impact on the health of a kid, from issues such as exposure to lead and asthma, low birth weight and infant mortality, to issues of future employment and economic security.