Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- one Introduction: scope and argument of the book
- two The conditions for child poverty: context and chronology
- three A fit occupation for children? Children and work
- four Workers of the future: the education of children
- five Discovering child poverty: child poverty and the family to 1945
- six Rediscovering child poverty: child poverty and policy from 1945
- seven Conclusion: child poverty on the agenda
- References
- Index
five - Discovering child poverty: child poverty and the family to 1945
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- one Introduction: scope and argument of the book
- two The conditions for child poverty: context and chronology
- three A fit occupation for children? Children and work
- four Workers of the future: the education of children
- five Discovering child poverty: child poverty and the family to 1945
- six Rediscovering child poverty: child poverty and policy from 1945
- seven Conclusion: child poverty on the agenda
- References
- Index
Summary
This chapter focuses on the development of research into child poverty itself and the policy response to it up to 1945. Gradually, the developments outlined in Chapters Two and Three came to mean that child welfare was more susceptible to systematic empirical research and was, at the same time, a greater potential source of concern. There was, increasingly, a policy imperative to respond to evidence of child poverty and hardship. This imperative continued to be balanced, however, by concerns over the economic implications of action as well as on-going reluctance to intervene either in the market or in what were deemed to be family responsibilities. The chapter explores the relationship of children to families, how support for children was seen as being an issue both inside and outside of the family context, and how child welfare was particularly tied up with and implicated in women’s welfare. The development of policy that responded explicitly to the recognition of the financial burden of childhood (and the primary responsibility of women for children) is considered up to the introduction of universal family allowances in 1945. This may have seemed to be the beginning of an era in which child welfare was paramount; however, the story continued to be complicated by ideological and political concerns that had precedents reaching far back.
Debating state support for families: creating perverse incentives?
Malthus, in 1803, proposed in his Essay on the principle of population that:
The clergyman of each parish should, previously to the solemnization of a marriage, read a short address to the parties, stating the strong obligation on every man to support his own children; the impropriety, and even immorality of marrying without a fair prospect of being able to do this; the evils which had resulted to the poor themselves, from the attempt which had been made to assist, by public institutions, in a duty which ought to be exclusively appropriated to parents. (Malthus, 1992 [1803], p 261)
The views expressed here – that the system of parish assistance was detrimental to society; that it created perverse incentives to labourers to produce large families which would justify them in receiving support; and that children were the sole responsibility of their parents – were to dominate the understanding of poor relief in the early years of the 19th century.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Discovering Child PovertyThe Creation of a Policy Agenda from 1800 to the Present, pp. 55 - 88Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2005