Child Well-Being, Child Poverty and Child Policy in Modern Nations: What Do We Know?
Vleminckx, Koen and Smeeding, Timothy M. (eds.) (2001).
Bristol: The Policy Press; 570 pages. $59.95. ISBN 1861342535.
This book aims to chart the prevalence of child poverty cross-nationally for industrialized and some transition countries; explore the impact of child poverty on children’s outcomes; and examine “what works” in terms of policy and suggest what countries can learn from each other. These are clearly areas of interest to a wide audience. The book provides both a point of reference for understanding differences in child poverty and a wide-ranging collection of papers on specific topics that readers may wish to exploit selectively. There are 20 chapters (plus an introduction and conclusion). While the chapters read together produce a rich cumulative understanding of child poverty research, many individual chapters are on topics that might interest readers with specialized interests. For example, there are chapters on time use among older children and young adults (Gauthier and Furstenberg) on child welfare in Central Asia (Falkingham) and on the relationship between national “values” and child welfare (Phipps).
In charting differences in rates of child poverty across countries, the studies collected here all utilize the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) and its harmonized data on 25 countries, including most OECD countries, several East European countries and Taiwan. The opening chapter illustrates the power and potential of the LIS to contribute to cross-national research. It also illustrates a problem common to many cross-national studies: the potentially frustrating time-lag between date of research (and publication) and the date of the most recent waves of LIS data. Poverty and policy has changed since 1995, sometimes dramatically, and had done so even by 2001 when this book was published.
The chapters attempt to achieve a balance between two approaches of comparative research: either covering one topic across a range of countries, with the risk of superficial treatment or inability to take meaningful account of institutional variation; or covering separate countries in depth and side-by-side, with the risk that differences between countries and the policy implications can only be inferred. Thus, chapters range from covering child poverty across 25 countries to covering a specific issue in one, such as change over time in child poverty in Ireland (Nolan), with many covering a selection of two, three or four countries. This approach makes sense in terms of illustrating how different questions need to be treated at different scales and the importance of selecting countries for meaningful comparison of particular issues. On the other hand, it makes it hard at times to relate chapters to each other or to see what the volume as a whole (rather than as the sum of its constituent parts) can tell us about child poverty. In particular, I felt that the section on Outcomes, though it contained much of interest, did not clarify whether there were universal ill-effects of child poverty that could be generalized across all the countries considered, or whether the “outcomes” were simply aspects of child poverty, or were in fact consequences of it.
The use of appropriate data to stress variation not only between but also within countries is a welcome feature. It is done at a regional level by Rainwater, Smeeding and Coder. Variation among population sub-groups is also treated in Frick and Wagner’s investigation of differences between immigrant and German-born ethnic German children; and in Christopher, England, McLanahan, Ross and Smeeding’s exploration of gender differences, their intersection with family policies and their implications for child well-being.
Much of the interest of this volume—and its implicit motivation—derives from the use of a wide range of methodological approaches in exploring questions of child poverty and policy. Examples include: the use of longitudinal data to examine both educational tracks in Germany (Büchel, Frick, Krause and Wagner) and the link between childhood experiences and adult employment in Britain (Gregg and Machin); the aggregation of data sources (Phipps); the use of an EU microsimulation model to evaluate national policies; simulation of women’s lifetime earnings depending on their skills and fertility histories (Davies and Joshi); and calculation of child costs based on comparison of households with and without children with similar living standards (Percival and Harding). The contribution of the particular methodologies is clearly spelled out and the description of the approaches is conducted in clear, non-technical language. Similarly, measures of poverty and well-being are clearly and simply described, but given sufficient emphasis to make the implications of their use and the significance of differences between measures clear to a lay reader.
Indeed, substantial consideration was clearly given in this book to its accessibility to readers and establishing its claims to summarize “what we know.” The layout is also clear and the information well-presented.
Overall, this volume contains a great deal of interesting material presented straightforwardly and effectively on a topical subject of concern to a wide range of readers. My main reservation is that I remain unconvinced that the volume makes a compelling case for bringing all its contents together as a whole. This may be partly a reflection of reviewing in 2005 a book that came out in 2001, and the wealth of material that has been produced in this area in the interim. Nevertheless, as an introduction to different ways of thinking about child poverty and its consequences this volume has much to offer.
Reviewer Information
University of Essex
Lucinda Platt is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex. She teachers British and comparative social policy and social divisions. Her research focuses on ethnic minorities and on child poverty, and she has published widely in these areas.