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Children and young people
We know that poverty and social exclusion have an impact on children and young people, and on their outcomes later in life. The particular issues faced by children living in poverty were highlighted in Chapter 2 of last year’s Opportunity for all strategy publication. The beginning of this chapter summarises the Opportunity for all indicators for children and young people. It then goes on to describe each indicator in detail.
Children in workless households
The proportion of children living in working-age workless households in Great Britain stood at 18.4 per cent in 1997 and since then the overall trend has been falling, reaching a low of 15.3 per cent in 2006 (indicator 1). In 2007 the Labour Force Survey moved from reporting its data in seasonal quarters to reporting calendar quarters, and so the 2007 figure of 16 per cent of children living in workless households is not directly comparable with previous years.
Children in lone-parent and couple households in which no adult worked were more likely to live in low income than those in which one or more adults were in full-time or part-time work.[8]
Low income
Children living in low-income households is measured in three ways: via relative low income, absolute low income and persistent low income using a range of thresholds (Indicator 2). In this summary there is a focus on those with an income below 60 per cent of median income.
The proportion of children living in households with relative low income fell between 1998/99 and 2004/05, from 24 per cent to 19 per cent on the before housing costs measure and from 33 per cent to 27 per cent on the after housing costs measure. The latest data available, for 2005/06, shows a rise in the proportion of children living in households with relative low income for the first time since the baseline. The rise was from 19 to 20 per cent before housing costs and 27 to 29 per cent after housing costs, but these changes fall within the confidence intervals for the data and as such cannot be considered statistically significant.
The proportion of children living in households with absolute low incomes (below the 1998/99 median) showed a large fall from 24 per cent to 12 per cent on the before housing costs measure and from 33 per cent to 17 per cent on the after housing costs measure.
The proportion of children in persistent low income has fallen consistently between 1997-2000 and 2002-05. At the baseline (1997–2000) 17 per cent of children lived in a household with a low income in at least three out of four years, on the before housing costs measure, and this fell to 11 per cent in 2002–05. At the baseline (1997-2000) 22 per cent of children lived in a household with a low income in at least three out of four years, on the after housing costs measure, and this fell to 17 per cent in 2002-05.
The risk of experiencing persistent low income for children is higher for those living in lone-parent families, in rented accommodation and workless households. Whilst this is true on both before and after housing costs measures, the risks of poverty among these groups have declined markedly by 2002-05 when compared to the earlier time periods.[9]
The Government’s long-term measure of child poverty – announced in Measuring Child Poverty[10] - is calculated on a slightly different basis to that presented in the indicator for Opportunity for all. The long-term measure is based on the OECD-modified equivalisation scale, while the Opportunity for all indicator is based on the McClements scale.[11] The long-term measure is on a before housing costs basis only.
Whilst the OECD-modified figures capture a slightly larger proportion of children in low income, the trends over time are the same as when income is equivalised using the McClements scale. The proportion of children living in households with relative low incomes using the OECD scale (below 60% median) fell between 1998/99 and 2004/05, from 26 per cent to 21 per cent, but rose slightly in 2005/06 to 22 per cent[12]. Despite these improvements, child poverty rates in the UK are still relatively high compared with other OECD countries.
Health
Since the baseline (1998, based on the average of the three years 1997–99), infant mortality rates have fallen in all social groups (Indicator 11). Though the gap has fluctuated during the period, overall there has been a widening in the gap in mortality rates between routine and manual groups and the overall population since the baseline. The gap narrowed very slightly in the most recent period.
The mortality rate for babies of teenage mothers was around 60 per cent higher than for babies of older mothers.[13] This group were also more likely to have low birth weight babies.[14]
Figures for 1990/91 to 1994/95 (not comparable with recent estimates) show a reduction over time in the rate at which children are admitted into hospital as a result of unintentional injury resulting in a hospital stay of longer than three days per 1,000 population (Indicator 12). The decline has continued in recent years with a fall in the admission rate from 1.22 per 1,000 in 1996/97 to 0.94 per 1,000 in 2000/01. Between 2000/01 and 2002/03 the admission rate remained fairly constant but since then it has fallen again to 0.83 per 1,000 in 2005/06.
Results for Great Britain indicate that rates of smoking during pregnancy (Indicator 13a) decreased from 30 per cent in 1985 to 23 per cent in 1995. The most recent Infant Feeding Survey reported that in 2005, 17 per cent of women continued to smoke throughout pregnancy in England (down from 19 per cent in 2000).
Smoking prevalence among children aged 11-15 has fluctuated between 13 per cent and 9 per cent since 1992, with no clear trend over time (Indicator 13b). The most recent estimate is 9 per cent in 2006.
Since the baseline there has been a clear upward trend in the prevalence of obesity among all children aged 2 to 10 (Indicator 14). At the 1997 baseline (as a percentage of all children aged 2 to 10) 11.1 per cent of boys aged 2 to 10 and 10.7 per cent of girls of the same age were obese. However in 2005 both boys and girls reported similar obesity levels of about 16.7 per cent.
The under-18 conception rate (Indicator 3a) fell between 1971 and 1981 and then rose until 1991. The rate fell again until 1995 but then rose following a contraceptive pill scare, reaching a peak in 1998. Between 1998 and the latest data (for 2005), the rate has fallen by 11.8 per cent from 46.6 to 41.1 conceptions per thousand females aged 15 to 17, the lowest rate for 20 years.
Re-registrations on the Child Protection Register fell from 20 per cent to 14 per cent between 1997/98 and 1999/2000. Re-registrations decreased to 13 per cent in 2002/03 and remained at 13 per cent until the latest rise to 14 per cent in 2005/06 (Indicator 15). However, it is worth noting that virtually all of the improvements from 1997/98 to 1998/99 were attributed to improvements in data quality. The 2005/06 figure shows that the gradual decrease seen since 1999/2000 has not continued.Education
Overall attainment has improved for children at Key Stage 3, at GCSE and in the proportion of 19-year-olds achieving at least a Level 2 qualification.
Between 1997 and 2007, there has been an overall increase in the proportion of pupils achieving Level 4 or higher in the Key Stage 2 tests for both English and mathematics – from 63 per cent to 80 per cent for English and from 62 per cent to 77 per cent for mathematics (Indicator 5).
The proportion of 16-year-olds with at least five GCSEs at grades A*–C has risen from 45.1 per cent in 1997 to 58.5 per cent in 2006 (Indicator 6). The number of schools achieving below a floor target of 20 per cent and 25 per cent achievement has also been steadily declining since the baseline year of 1997.
There has been an overall increase in the percentage of 19-year-olds with at least a Level 2 qualification from 69.8 per cent in 1996 to 76.6 per cent in 2003 (Indicator 7). Data from 2004 onwards is not comparable with earlier years and therefore we have reassigned 2004 as the baseline for this indicator. In 2004, 66.3 per cent of 19-year-olds had at least a Level 2 qualification, which has since increased to 71.4 per cent in 2006.
The proportion of 16–18-year-olds in learning also increased from 59 per cent to 77 per cent between 1985 and 1994, and then remained broadly constant until 1996 (Indicator 8). Since then it has continued to be broadly constant (between 75 and 77 per cent) and stood at 77.3 per cent in 2006.
The proportion of teenage mothers who are in education, employment or training in England has risen from 23.1 per cent for the period 1997-99 to 31.5 per cent in the period 2005-07 (Indicator 3b).
There has also been an overall increase in school attendance from the baseline year of 1997 to 2005/06, although with some fluctuation in the intervening years (Indicator 10). However, for the most disadvantaged children, improvements in educational outcomes have been more mixed.
Between 2005 and 2006, the number of children in the most deprived areas who achieved a good level of development in maintained schools fell from 37 per cent to 33 per cent compared with a fall from 54 per cent to 50 per cent for children in the rest of England (Indicator 4). However, there are only two years worth of data on which to compare the two groups, and since 2005 the improved rigour in assessment – particularly the reporting of those children achieving all, or working beyond, the Early Learning Goals (scale 8-9) – and better moderation practices have contributed to a downward shift in scores.
The attainment levels for children in care continue to be much lower than the average for all children (Indicator 9a).[15] The proportion of young people in care for at least one year who obtained at least five GCSEs/GNVQs at grades A*–C in England increased from the baseline of 7.3 per cent in 1999/2000 to 11.8 per cent in 2005/06. However, the gap between the proportion of looked-after children achieving five GCSEs/GNVQs at grades A*-C and the proportion of all children achieving five GCSE and equivalent at grades A*-C has increased from 41.9 percentage points in 1999/2000 to 47.4 percentage points in 2005/06.
The percentage of looked-after children in the same placement for at least two and a half years or placed for adoption has increased from the baseline of 63 per cent in 2002 to 65 per cent in 2006 (Indicator 9c).
Recent research extends our understanding of the relationship between education and poverty[16]. For example, providing insights into children's contrasting experiences of school and out-of-school activities based on their background, and discovering that, whilst children from all backgrounds see the benefits of school, deprived children are more likely to be concerned about the schooling they receive, and less confident about school.
Housing
In 1996, 41 per cent of children lived in a home that did not meet the set standard of decency (Indicator 16). This has since fallen to 23 per cent in 2005. Although, in general, households with children are less likely than other vulnerable household types to live in non-decent housing, particular groups of households with children, such as those on low incomes, minority ethnic households or lone-parent households, tend to experience poorer housing conditions.[17]
The number of homeless families with dependent children in temporary accommodation in England fell by 9 per cent between March 2006 and March 2007 (Indicator 17). However, between March 2002 (the baseline) and March 2007 there had been an increase of 19 per cent.
At the end of March 2007, 92 per cent of homeless households with dependent children were housed in self-contained accommodation - that is, with sole use of kitchen and bathroom facilities. Over half (59 per cent) were in private-sector houses and flats leased by local authorities and registered social landlords (also known as housing associations), while just over a fifth (21 per cent) were in social housing owned and managed by local authorities and registered social landlords. Therefore, a much smaller proportion is now in shared accommodation, for example bed and breakfast hotels, hostels and women’s refuges. (See also Indicator 26 on rough sleeping, which occurs predominantly among single male adults).
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