Child Poverty, Deprivation and Well-Being: Evidence for Australia

This paper applies a child-centric approach to examine the relationship between poverty, deprivation and well-being among children aged between 11 and 16 attending government high schools in New South Wales, Australia. Poverty is measured using children’s perceptions of the ability of their family to ‘get by’ while the consensual approach is used to identify as deprived children who do not have but want items that are regarded by a majority as essential for all children. A survey was developed after conducing focus groups with children and was completed by 2672 children attending one of 52 schools in mid-2016. The survey data were used to estimate the incidence of poverty and deprivation and the severity of both conditions was compared with a range of indicators of subjective well-being that cover overall life satisfaction, happiness, connectedness and contentment with aspects of schooling. The results show that children who perceive themselves as either poor or deprived (or both) have lower levels of well-being in all four dimensions compared with children to who are neither poor nor deprived. The associations between well-being and both poverty and deprivation are similar, which suggests that both have a role to play and that some form of composite (overlap) measure should be included in future studies of child poverty and disadvantage.