Child Poverty Monitor 2020: Technical Report

Abstract

Whakatōngia te kākano aroha i roto i ā tātou taitamariki kia puāwai i roto i tō rātou tupuranga aranui oranga ‘Plant the seed of love in our children and they will blossom, grow and journey towards the greatest pathway of life'.

To children and young people in Aotearoa, a good life includes “having fun and feeling contented, having supportive family and friends, and having basic needs met” as well as being mentally and physically healthy, “feeling safe, having a good education and feeling valued and respected”

Poverty is a significant barrier to children enjoying their right to an adequate standard of living. Poverty is associated with a wide range of negative consequences for children, including poor outcomes in cognitive development, achievement at school, health and development. Families and children who lack material and financial resources struggle to meet everyday needs and miss out on opportunities that most in Aotearoa take for granted.

This eighth annual Child Poverty Monitor updates progress made toward a society where every child is valued and enjoys their right to thrive and achieve their potential. This report uses a variety of data sources to measure indicators and impacts of poverty for households with children. Data in this report mostly precede the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of the actions taken by the New Zealand Government to eliminate community transmission of the novel coronavirus. In addition to monitoring how Aotearoa meets its commitments to uphold the rights of every child and young people in non-pandemic contexts, having pre-COVID-19 information on the status of poverty and wellbeing in Aotearoa will assist with ascertaining the impact that the pandemic has had on the lives of all people and especially on the lives of our most vulnerable.

The report is grouped into three chapters: • Ending child poverty: The first group of indicators reflects progress toward a reduction in the number and proportion of children living in households that experience income poverty and material hardship. • Growing up in a safe and healthy environment: The second group of indicators tracks progress toward goals to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing, ensuring access to affordable, healthy homes, ensuring access to sufficient and nutritious food, promoting nurture and protection within families and wider society as well as providing equitable, high quality education for all. • Resources to thrive: The final section discusses the broader context in which families and whānau access resources to enable children to thrive. The discussion includes labour market circumstances, and information about children who are included in households who receive financial assistance from the State in the form of income-replacing benefits, hardship and other forms of assistance, and young people receiving financial assistance.

About the Child Poverty Monitor The Child Poverty Monitor is a partnership between the J R McKenzie Trust, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, and the New Zealand Child and Youth Epidemiology Service (NZCYES) at the University of Otago. Each year the Child Poverty Monitor partners choose indicators that reflect aspects of the extent to which children and young people in Aotearoa grow up in households with the resources for everyone to thrive. These indicators contribute to a broad picture of the scale and impact of poverty on children’s lives in Aotearoa. There is a lag between collection of data in national surveys and publication of the results. Much of the data in the 2020 Child Poverty Monitor stops short of providing information about the impact of COVID-19, as it reflects a time before the pandemic started and before the measures implemented to reduce infection in the communities. Timely processing of data will aid future monitoring of progress toward elimination of child poverty.

COVID-19 pandemic – a year like no other In February 2020, the first case of COVID-19 was identified in Aotearoa. Statistical modelling showed that an uncontrolled epidemic of COVID-19 in Aotearoa could overwhelm hospital capacity more than 10 times and result in a large number of deaths. The COVID-19 pandemic would have disproportionately negative impacts on Māori in the event of community transmission, exacerbating existing inequity. Pacific Peoples in Aotearoa were also at risk of bearing a disproportionate health burden as a result of COVID-19. The New Zealand Government responded with a four-level alert system including one of the most stringent ‘stay at home’ orders internationally.

While addressing the COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing in Aotearoa and globally, it is clear and well-established that pandemics feed off and exacerbate national and global inequality. Children’s wellbeing is impacted directly by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as for those who become unwell or who experience the death of a parent or grandparent as a result of infection. The socioeconomic impacts of the measures implemented to control transmission of the virus have an even more profound effect on child wellbeing through increasing levels of child, family and whānau poverty. In the longer term there is a risk of undermining children’s rights and failing to achieve the global goals for sustainable development. Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā note that “experiences of colonisation, coloniality, racism, and a substantial body of evidence from Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu and Indigenous communities around the world, tells us that through pandemics and other crises, unchecked government action and ‘one-size -fits-all’ approaches will exacerbate existing inequities”.

2020 is a year like no other. In this report we provide some commentary on the impact of COVID-19 on the wellbeing of children and young people to provide a more complete picture. This is important, in light of the data lag associated with national data sources. We augment national data with indicators or stories where possible.