Child Poverty, Rights, and Well-being
- LAST REVIEWED: 24 July 2013
- LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0134
- LAST REVIEWED: 24 July 2013
- LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0134
Introduction
Child poverty constitutes a global crisis with far-reaching implications for children’s psychosocial, cognitive, and physical development, educational achievement, and future citizenship. Child poverty must also be understood in the broader context of children’s rights, women’s poverty and women’s rights and examined in terms of the impact of globalization and neoliberal policies on the lives of children and their families in both poor and wealthy nations. The discourses of poverty, the construction of the global poor, how poverty is defined and measured, and its multiple meanings shape both policy and practices in both national and international contexts. Human rights are inextricably bound to poverty as growing inequality and the politics of distribution have led to vast circles of impoverishment. Loss of jobs, loss of health care, loss of land, lack of access to clean water and food, environmental degradation, and exploitation of labor and natural resources—all contribute in no small measure to dispossession and displacement.
General Overviews
Situating child poverty in a global context draws on interdisciplinary sources that cover globalization, neoliberalism, resource redistribution, citizenship, human rights, and philosophical questions about what it means to be fully human. Unlike traditional economic studies that analyze poverty in monetary terms as a deprivation of means, Sen 1999 argues that poverty must also be understood as multidimensional, incorporating human rights, human freedom, well-being, and the capacity for human functioning and human capabilities. Nussbaum 2011, building on earlier work (see Nussbaum 2000, cited under Families in Poverty), argues for a capabilities approach that emphasizes human dignity and opportunity within a framework of social and gender justice and embodies a set of political entitlements and central capabilities that society should nurture and support on behalf of its citizens. Stiglitz 2002 points to the devastating impacts of globalization on the world’s poorest communities and questions who benefits from the globalization agenda. He argues that the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization championed market supremacy with high costs to developing nations; instead, global governance should be democratized promoting sustainable equitable growth with a human face. Harvey 2005 interrogates the inherent contradictions of democratic governance with its attendant political and civic participation, as well as the hegemonic impacts of neoliberalism that thrive best under governance by experts and elites. Key tenets of neoliberalism are analyzed in relation to global inequality, poverty, and the diminution of the role of government and the promotion of the public good. Pogge 2007 challenges readers to consider the moral and ethical implications and the “positive duties” that ensue in a global world order where severe poverty and extreme inequality persist. Authors raise fundamental questions about poverty as a violation of human rights, justice, and the right to resistance. Lister 2004 addresses poverty, social exclusion, and social policy. The author draws on her experience as a member of the UK Child Care Action Group to address participation and voice as essential to understanding poverty within a human rights framework that emphasizes citizenship and agency. She addresses material and nonmaterial definitions of poverty, analyzes global structural inequalities and the politics of representation that create objectification and “othering,” and argues for a politics of respect, recognition, and redistribution. Public intellectual Tony Judt’s volume of essays (Judt 2010) raises penetrating questions about what he terms “private affluence and public squalor,” and he suggests a revisioning of social democracy for the 21st century that fosters greater equality and social justice.
Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
A classic primer on neoliberalism that focuses on the G-7 countries with particular focus on the US and China and how globalization has promoted the upward distribution of wealth. The key tenets of market supremacy, deregulation, reduction of the role of the state, privatization, free trade and corporate freedoms are analyzed in relation to inequality and the role of democratic governance.
Judt, Tony. Ill Fares the Land. New York: Penguin, 2010.
A volume of essays that raises provocative questions about the consequences of deregulation and the decreased role of the state in protecting and promoting the public good in Europe and the United States. Judt suggests a critical appraisal of growing inequality and poverty and argues for a rethinking and reframing of social democracy to promote social and economic justice.
Lister, Ruth. Poverty. Cambridge, MA: Polity, 2004.
Critical analysis of poverty, including definitions, an analysis of structural inequality, race, and the feminization of poverty as well as social exclusion and agency. Reviews both methodological and conceptual frameworks, income-based and capabilities perspectives, and argues for participant-insider voices and empowerment within a human rights framework.
Nussbaum, Martha C. Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.
DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674061200
Nussbaum challenges the widely held assumption that measuring a country’s well-being using the GDP approach permits asset-rich countries with vast inequalities to emerge as successful. She argues for a capabilities approach that emphasizes what people are “able to do and to be” and that focuses on freedom, choice, and human dignity, and holds governments responsible for the provision of a minimum social threshold.
Pogge, Thomas, ed. Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Part of a UNESCO human rights project on global poverty, focusing on the severe inequalities among affluent and poor countries. The edited volume draws on interdisciplinary perspectives that focus on the meaning of acute poverty, oppression, loss of dignity and autonomy, justice, rights, collective responsibilities, and resistance.
Sen, Amartya Kumar. Commodities and Capabilities. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Sen critiques traditional utilitarian economic models and views poverty not only as a deprivation of means but as a deprivation of human capabilities. He argues for a multidimensional human development approach that emphasizes fundamental resources such as employment, food, and housing as well as human choice and freedom. He advocates for a “capabilities approach” in international development and public policy evaluation.
Stiglitz, Joseph E. Globalization and Its Discontents. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002.
Globalization and its attendant free-market ideologies have exacerbated the impoverishment of the global poor, and Stiglitz argues that structural adjustment policies must be reformed. The problem is not globalization per se, but how it has been managed, serving the interests of advanced industrialized societies. Argues that sustainable equitable development with a democratized global governance should be promoted.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Abduction of Children
- Aboriginal Childhoods
- Addams, Jane
- ADHD, Sociological Perspectives on
- Adolescence and Youth
- Adolescent Consent to Medical Treatment
- Adoption and Fostering
- Adoption and Fostering, History of Cross-Country
- Adoption and Fostering in Canada, History of
- Advertising and Marketing, Psychological Approaches to
- Advertising and Marketing, Sociocultural Approaches to
- Africa, Children and Young People in
- African American Children and Childhood
- After-school Hours and Activities
- Aggression across the Lifespan
- Ancient Near and Middle East, Child Sacrifice in the
- Animals, Children and
- Animations, Comic Books, and Manga
- Anthropology of Childhood
- Archaeology of Childhood
- Ariès, Philippe
- Art History, Children in
- Attachment in Children and Adolescents
- Australia, History of Adoption and Fostering in
- Australian Indigenous Contexts and Childhood Experiences
- Autism, Females and
- Autism, Medical Model Perspectives on
- Autobiography and Childhood
- Benjamin, Walter
- Bereavement
- Best Interest of the Child
- Bioarchaeology of Childhood
- Body, Children and the
- Body Image
- Bourdieu, Pierre
- Boy Scouts/Girl Guides
- Boys and Fatherhood
- Breastfeeding
- Bronfenbrenner, Urie
- Bruner, Jerome
- Buddhist Views of Childhood
- Byzantine Childhoods
- Child and Adolescent Anger
- Child Beauty Pageants
- Child Homelessness
- Child Mortality, Historical Perspectives on Infant and
- Child Protection
- Child Protection, Children, Neoliberalism, and
- Child Public Health
- Child Trafficking and Slavery
- Childcare Manuals
- Childhod, Agency and
- Childhood and Borders
- Childhood and Empire
- Childhood as Discourse
- Childhood, Confucian Views of Children and
- Childhood, Memory and
- Childhood Publics
- Childhood Studies and Leisure Studies
- Childhood Studies in France
- Childhood Studies, Interdisciplinarity in
- Childhood Studies, Posthumanism and
- Childhoods in the United States, Sports and
- Childism
- Children and Dance
- Children and Film-Making
- Children and Money
- Children and Social Media
- Children and Sport
- Children and Sustainable Cities
- Children as Language Brokers
- Children as Perpetrators of Crime
- Children, Code-switching and
- Children in the Industrial Revolution
- Children with Autism in a Brazilian Context
- Children, Young People, and Architecture
- Children's Humor
- Children’s Museums
- Children’s Parliaments
- Children’s Reading Development and Instruction
- Children's Views of Childhood
- China, Japan, and Korea
- China's One Child Policy
- Citizenship
- Civil Rights Movement and Desegregation
- Class
- Classical World, Children in the
- Clothes and Costume, Children’s
- Collective Memory in Latin America, Childhoods and Collect...
- Colonial America, Child Witches in
- Colonialism and Human Rights
- Colonization and Nationalism
- Color Symbolism and Child Development
- Common World Childhoods
- Competitiveness, Children and
- Conceptual Development in Early Childhood
- Congenital Disabilities
- Constructivist Approaches to Childhood
- Consumer Culture, Children and
- Consumption, Child and Teen
- Conversation Analysis and Research with Children
- Critical Approaches to Children’s Work and the Concept of ...
- Crying
- Cultural psychology and human development
- Debt and Financialization of Childhood
- Disability
- Discipline and Punishment
- Discrimination
- Disney, Walt
- Divorce And Custody
- Dolls
- Domestic Violence
- Drawings, Children’s
- Early Childhood
- Early Childhood Care and Education, Selected History of
- Eating disorders and obesity
- Education: Learning and Schooling Worldwide
- Environment, Children and the
- Environmental Education and Children
- Ethics in Research with Children
- Eugenics
- Europe (including Greece and Rome), Child Sacrifice in
- Evolutionary Studies of Childhood
- Family Meals
- Fandom (Fan Studies)
- Fathers
- Female Genital Cutting
- Feminist New Materialist Approaches to Childhood Studies
- Feral and "Wild" Children
- Fetuses and Embryos
- Filicide
- Films about Children
- Films for Children
- Folk Tales, Fairy Tales and
- Folklore
- Food
- Foundlings and Abandoned Children
- Freud, Anna
- Freud, Sigmund
- Friends and Peers: Psychological Perspectives
- Froebel, Friedrich
- Gangs
- Gay and Lesbian Parents
- Gender and Childhood
- Generations, The Concept of
- Geographies, Children's
- Gifted and Talented Children
- Globalization
- Growing Up in the Digital Era
- Hall, G. Stanley
- Happiness in Children
- Hindu Views of Childhood and Child Rearing
- Hispanic Childhoods (U.S.)
- Historical Approaches to Child Witches
- History of Childhood in America
- History of Childhood in Canada
- HIV/AIDS, Growing Up with
- Homeschooling
- Humor and Laughter
- Images of Childhood, Adulthood, and Old Age in Children’s ...
- Infancy and Ethnography
- Infant Mortality in a Global Context
- Innocence and Childhood
- Institutional Care
- Intercultural Learning and Teaching with Children
- Islamic Views of Childhood
- Japan, Childhood in
- Juvenile Detention in the US
- Key, Ellen
- Klein, Melanie
- Labor, Child
- Latin America
- Learning, Language
- Learning to Write
- Legends, Contemporary
- Literary Representations of Childhood
- Literature, Children's
- Love and Care in the Early Years
- Magazines for Teenagers
- Maltreatment, Child
- Maria Montessori
- Marxism and Childhood
- Masculinities/Boyhood
- Material Cultures of Western Childhoods
- Mead, Margaret
- Media, Children in the
- Media Culture, Children's
- Medieval and Anglo-Saxon Childhoods
- Menstruation
- Middle Childhood
- Middle East
- Migration
- Miscarriage
- Missionaries/Evangelism
- Moral Development
- Moral Panics
- Mothers
- Multi-culturalism and Education
- Music and Babies
- Nation and Childhood
- Native American and Aboriginal Canadian Childhood
- New Reproductive Technologies and Assisted Conception
- Nursery Rhymes
- Organizations, Nongovernmental
- Orphans
- Parental Gender Preferences, The Social Construction of
- Parenting
- Pediatrics, History of
- Peer Culture
- Perspectives on Boys' Circumcision
- Peter Pan
- Philosophy and Childhood
- Piaget, Jean
- Play
- Politics, Children and
- Postcolonial Childhoods
- Post-Modernism
- Poverty, Rights, and Well-being, Child
- Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica Childhoods
- Premodern China, Conceptions of Childhood in
- Prostitution and Pornography, Child
- Psychoanalysis
- Queer Theory and Childhood
- Race and Ethnicity
- Racism, Children and
- Radio, Children, and Young People
- Readers, Children as
- Refugee and Displaced Children
- Reimagining Early Childhood Education, Reconceptualizing a...
- Relational Ontologies
- Relational Pedagogies
- Rights, Children’s
- Risk and Resilience
- Russia
- School Shootings
- Sex Education in the United States
- Sexuality
- Siblings
- Siblings, Learning Disabilities and
- Social and Cultural Capital of Childhood
- Social Habitus in Childhood
- Social Movements, Children's
- Social Policy, Children and
- Socialization and Child Rearing
- Socio-cultural Perspectives on Children's Spirituality
- Sociology of Childhood
- South African Birth to Twenty Project
- South Asia
- South Asia, History of Childhood in
- Special Education
- Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence
- Spock, Benjamin
- Sports and Organized Games
- Street Children
- Street Children And Brazil
- Subcultures
- Sure Start
- Teenage Fathers
- Teenage Pregnancy
- Television
- The Bible and Children
- The Harms and Prevention of Drugs and Alcohol on Children
- The Spaces of Childhood
- Theater for Children and Young People
- Theories, Pedagogic
- Tourism
- Toys
- Transgender Children
- Tweens
- Twins and Multiple Births
- Unaccompanied Migrant Children
- United Kingdom, History of Adoption and Fostering in the
- United States, Schooling in the
- Value of Children
- Views of Childhood, Jewish and Christian
- Violence, Children and
- Visual Representations of Childhood
- Voice, Participation, and Agency
- Vygotsky, Lev and His Cultural-historical Approach to Deve...
- War
- Welfare Law in the United States, Child
- Well-Being, Child
- Western Europe and Scandinavia
- Western Literature, The Urban Child in
- Witchcraft in the Contemporary World, Children and
- Work and Apprenticeship, Children's
- Young Carers
- Young Children and Inclusion
- Young Children’s Imagination
- Young Lives
- Young People, Alcohol, and Urban Life
- Young People and Climate Activism
- Young People and Disadvantaged Environments in Affluent Co...