Focus on child poverty queried

The focus on child poverty serves to perpetuate poverty instead of eliminating it, a researcher told a conference in Dunedin yesterday.

Speaking to delegates at the Public Health Association Conference, Massey University school of public health researcher Mary Breheny said it was ''tempting'' but wrong to single out child poverty.

Child poverty has become a major focus for campaigners in recent years.

The problem has been drawn to the public's attention, putting pressure on the Government to do more to help children.

However, Dr Breheny disagreed with that approach.

''Attempts to overcome poverty that focus on child poverty instead serve to ensure its continuation.

''We need to recognise that a life of poverty matters, not just a childhood of poverty.''

It pitted generations against one another, glossing over the inequality and differences within the generations, she said.

Older people came to be seen as ''relics of the past'' who were ''beyond the interest of policy-makers''.

Children were seen as a ''social investment'', which conformed to the view of society as a business.

''We cannot disrupt poverty, not even child poverty, by using the logic that justifies arrangements that increase inequality.''

It reinforced the notion that poverty was caused by life choices, rather than an economic system of inequality, Dr Breheny said.

Presenting children as ''blameless victims'' implied that poor adults had themselves to blame.

''Framing poverty as a competition between generations ignores the interconnections between people and the impossibility of separating out the wellbeing of children from the wellbeing of their families.

''It implies the social arrangements which produce unfair outcomes will somehow give way to social arrangements in which adults are rewarded fairly for their efforts.''

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