A Child Material Deprivation Index

Child poverty is high on the policy agenda in the UK and the European Union. But poverty and deprivation is almost exclusively
measured by asking adults (parents) about their incomes and living standards. Some qualitative work has been done asking children
about poverty but this article develops a new, child-centric measure using children as informants. Data from two surveys run
by the Children’s Society are used, both covering children aged 8–16. One included 2,000 respondents and data were linked
to income data provided by parents; the other included almost 5,500 respondents and covered detailed topics relating to children’s
material situation and their subjective well-being. A new ten item deprivation index was developed and children were asked
whether they lacked the items, and if so whether they wanted them or not. It was found that this index explained more of the
variation in subjective well-being than parental income poverty explained. This is partly because there were deprived children
living in families which were not income poor and non deprived children living in families which were income poor. Child material
deprivation was found to be more strongly related to low subjective well-being than the absence of deprivation was to high
subjective well-being.