The poorest children in Northern Ireland live in lower-income homes but are less deprived than children in poverty in the Republic, a landmark study published on Thursday finds.
The report from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) suggests better public services, more widely available benefits and lower housing costs in Northern Ireland are providing better protection to children in poverty than higher social welfare payments are south of the Border.
“The contrasting comparison for child income poverty and child material deprivation levels North and south suggests that families on low incomes in [the Republic] have been less able to convert household income into an adequate standard of living compared with families … in Northern Ireland,” it states.
“This is likely to be connected to the cost-of-living differences, in particular housing costs.”
Titled Child Poverty on the Island of Ireland, the report is part of a joint research programme between the ESRI and the Shared Island unit of the Department of the Taoiseach.
[ One in five children in Northern Ireland living in poverty – reportOpens in new window ]
It looks at two measures of poverty: income poverty where a household’s disposable income that is less than 60 per cent of the median, and material deprivation where households cannot afford at least two of five basic essentials such as paying their bills on time or keeping their home warm.
Throughout the period analysed (2004 to 2023) income poverty remained higher in Northern Ireland, finishing at about 21 per cent in the final two years, compared with about 14 per cent in the Republic.
Conversely, through most of the same period child material deprivation was higher south of the Border, though by the final year child deprivation reached 24 per cent in both jurisdictions, notes the report.
Researchers drew on national survey data on incomes and living standards and consulted with stakeholders in both jurisdictions.
Looking at benefits, it found “the value of [child benefit] is considerably higher” in the Republic than in Northern Ireland. However the “value of means-tested benefits in Northern Ireland is higher … than [in the Republic] and the receipt of such benefits stretches much higher up in the income distribution in Northern Ireland”.
The report continues: “Stakeholders from both jurisdictions highlighted the importance of levels of social welfare income supports for addressing child poverty and the need for these to be sufficient to meet the needs of families.
“They emphasised the need to uprate welfare benefits in line with inflation to take account of the rise in the cost of living.”
[ Child poverty in the Republic down by almost 20% – UnicefOpens in new window ]
The report points to the longer-standing availability of benefits such as free schoolbooks, free hot school meals and free GP care as enabling lower household incomes go further in the North.
Children living in lone-parent households, larger families and households with a disabled member faced “significantly higher risks of poverty” in both jurisdictions, with children leaving care, Traveller and Roma children and those from asylum seeker families also at particular risk.
Household joblessness was a bigger risk for children in the Republic, again suggesting the higher cost of living and less developed public services eroded welfare payments more quickly than in the North.
Better access to childcare and adult education, greater workplace accommodation for disabled people and a second-tier child benefit targeted at the poorest children in the Republic are among the report’s recommendations.
