Child poverty in Britain is causing 'social apartheid'
Jamie Doward and Taytula Burke
The Observer, Saturday 24 August 2013 22.15 BST
In a damning report to be published next week, the National Children's Bureau finds that, in many respects, child poverty is now a bigger problem than during the 1960s, when it carried out a seminal study, Born to Fail?.
The report compares aspects of children's lives today to data from the Born to Fail? cohort study of 11-year-olds, carried out in 1969. It finds that significantly more children are growing up in relative poverty today – 3.6 million compared with 2 million – and claims that these children suffer "devastating consequences throughout their lives".
"There is a real risk that our society is sleepwalking into a world where children grow up in a state of social apartheid, with poor children destined to experience hardship and disadvantage just by accident of birth, and their more affluent peers unaware of their existence."
The charity claims that, if the UK emulated the example of those European countries deemed to be the best places to grow up in, the deaths of 172 children through unintentional injuries alone could be prevented every year, 320,000 more 15- to 19-year-olds would be in education or training, and nearly 45,000 fewer 11-year-olds would be obese...
(Much more at link):
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/aug/24/child-poverty-social-apartheid-ncb