Child Poverty Bill
12:00 pm
Dr. Ridge: I think that 60 per cent. catches a lot of experiences of poverty, as my research has indicated to me. I am not saying that there is not a problem about being in the severest poverty and having long durations of poverty, but family lives can change so much; there is a lot of fluidity in family life. People are trying to get in and out of employment. Some of the poorest children, research has shown, are in those families that are moving between employment and benefits. If you focus just on the 40 per cent., increasingly, you will miss what, certainly for children, is one of the most problematic experiences. Research that we have done at Bath, longitudinally, looking at children’s experiences of employment—lone mother employment—over time has shown that the loss of employment, the drop out of the labour market, the attempts to get back in and then, perhaps, another drop out of the labour market is experienced in a very particular way by children. It is very problematic. Not only is there other research evidence to show that some of those children can be the poorest children but also that that experience can be particularly problematic.