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
two - The conditions for child poverty: context and chronology
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 outlines the development of empirical research and the social survey with its ability to define and quantify child poverty. It connects developments in research to the economic, political and religious currents of the time and to the background of the individual researchers, and outlines subsequent developments or modifications in child poverty research following the development of the prototypical social surveys. It also describes the contested nature of empirical investigation, which has not simply been the preserve of disinterested researchers; and it shows how the development of statistics was allied to debates concerning the value and quality of human life, which came into focus with studies of poverty. It goes on to look at succeeding developments and measures of child poverty, including the ‘rediscovery of poverty’ in the 1950s and 1960s. It charts the ongoing efforts of researchers better to render the reality of poverty both meaningful and immediate to publics and governments. It provides the context for the consideration of child poverty and policy, which constitutes the succeeding chapters.
The background to and development of empirical Investigation
According to Poovey (1998), the end of the 18th century marked a shift in approaches to numbers and counting, whereby numbers became stripped of the Christian Platonic significance that had characterised that understanding hitherto. Instead they began to be regarded as without moral connotation and to hold the ability to support or challenge theoretical positions or presuppositions. For Poovey, it is Thomas Malthus who exemplifies this transition in approaches to argument and the collection of numerical data. She highlights Malthus’s An essay on the principle of population (first published in a short version in 1798; the expanded edition, which is the one generally discussed was published in 1803) in part because it was highly influential and controversial – with its influence lasting well into the 20th century and the neo-Malthusian movement. But the work also forms a highly pertinent text for consideration because the influence and controversy stemmed not simply from its underlying ideas but also from the way it advocated (and used) empirical and observational data.
Malthus was a clergyman living through a period of dramatic demographic and industrial change. The population in England saw an unprecedented expansion in the late 18th and early 19th centuries: from around 1750, increased fertility rates were sustained by younger age at marriage and improved chances of survival for infants (Coleman, 2000).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Discovering Child PovertyThe Creation of a Policy Agenda from 1800 to the Present, pp. 9 - 30Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2005