ABSTRACT

In seeking to explain the quite extraordinary increase in child poverty in Britain that has occurred during the last two decades, some commentators have pointed to transition: not exactly the economic transitions of the former Eastern bloc countries, but the economic transitions that it has been necessary to make to respond to economic globalisation, and demographic transitions, particularly ageing and changes in family form. Is this true and why should children have suffered most from the increase in the prevalence of poverty and inequality in that country in the last two decades? Is this increase in child poverty really the inevitable result of the restructuring of welfare states in the face of the economic pressures of globalisation, and/or demographic changes? Or is the plight of children in Britain merely the result of the social and fiscal policies pursued by successive Conservative Governments, who were in power between 1979 and 1997, and throughout that time sought to ‘roll back’ the welfare state by cutting taxes and public expenditure? As a result, some cash benefits were abolished, others cut or not uprated regularly (including child benefits), social assistance scales were uprated only in line with prices, real rents increased, there was a shift from contributory benefits to means-tested benefits, and there was a major switch from raising revenue via direct taxation to indirect taxation.