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This article offers a cross-country overview of child poverty, changes in child poverty, and the impact of public policy in North America and Europe. Levels and changes in child poverty rates in 12 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries during the 1990s are documented using data from the Luxembourg Income Study project, and a decomposition analysis is used to uncover the relative role of demographic factors, labor markets, and income transfers from the state in determining the magnitude and direction of the changes. Child poverty rates fell noticeably in only three countries and rose in three others. In no country were demographic factors a force for higher child poverty rates, but these factors were also limited in their ability to cushion children from adverse shocks originating in the labor market or the government sector. Increases in the labor market engagement of mothers consistently lowered child poverty rates, while decreases in the employment rates and earnings of fathers were a force for higher rates. Finally, there is no single road to lower child poverty rates. Reforms to income transfers intended to increase labor supply may or may not end up lowering the child poverty rate.

Child poverty is an epidemic in most developing countries, and also exists in developed countries, including Australia. In many developed countries the official definition of poverty used for statistical purposes is based on relative income. More than 30% of children in developing countries about 600 million live on less than US $1 a day. Every 3.6 seconds one person dies of starvation, usually it is a child under the age of 5. Poverty hits children hardest and creates an environment that is damaging to childrens development in every way mental, physical, emotional and spiritual. UNICEF recently released a report comparing life for children in 24 OECD countries. Australia ranked second from the bottom, with 12% of this nations children living in households where the total income was less than half the countrys median; 10% of the child population lives in households where no adult is employed; many will have only one parent and, as two-thirds of single parents have left school by the end of year 10, these children are likely to become part of a generational cycle of poverty. This book examines child poverty from a global and Australian perspective. What can be done to give impoverished children a better chance in life?

Children are at the highest poverty risk in any country. Poverty is a blight denying poor children the opportunities that others quite often take for granted. Aiming at elaborating policies/recommendations to eradicate child poverty, the report touches upon social-economic conditions of households with children, presents some measures of child poverty, and highlights social costs of passing childhood in poverty.

This paper documents levels and changes in child poverty rates in 12 OECD countries using data from the Luxembourg Income Study project, and focusing upon an analysis of the reasons for changes over the 1990s. The objective is to uncover the relative role of income transfers from the state in determining the magnitude and direction of change in child poverty rates, holding other demographic and labour market factors constant. As such the paper offers a cross-country overview of child poverty, changes in child poverty, and the impact of public policy in North America and Europe.

This paper documents levels and changes in child poverty rates in 13 OECD countries using data from the Luxembourg Income Study project, and focusing upon an analysis of the reasons for changes over the 1990s. The objective is to uncover the relative role of income transfers from the state in determining the magnitude and direction of change in child poverty rates, holding other demographic and labour market factors constant. As such the paper offers a cross-country overview of child poverty, changes in child poverty, and the impact of public policy in North America and Europe.

One aspiration of the new child support scheme was to reduce child poverty. Child support can do this directly by increasing the income of parents with care – although the £10 disregard on Income Support is a constraint on this. However, it may increase child poverty in the non-resident parent's family. Child support can also reduce child poverty indirectly by encouraging employment or reducing lone parenthood. While it is possible to estimate the direct effects on parents with care there is no evidence concerning non-resident parents. Child support does reduce child poverty rates by over 60% for those lone parents in employment who receive it, and it could achieve more if the regime was more effective.

This article reviews the most up to date evidence on the prevalence of child poverty in Britain. It traces how child poverty has changed over the last 20 years, and how child poverty in Britain compares with that in other countries. Then there is a brief section describing the characteristics of poor children. It then reviews evidence of the impact of poverty on the well‐being of children drawing on the ESRC Children 5–16 programme project—Poverty: the Outcomes for Children (Bradshaw, 2001a). It concludes with a discussion of how the Labour Government is doing in its aspirations to abolish child poverty. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.