Our project addresses one of the most pressing social problems in Spain: our high rates of child poverty. Around 28% of children in Spain live in poverty, one of the highest rates among wealthy nations. Child poverty has significant negative consequences.

  • At the individual level, experiencing poverty in childhood has a negative impact on life opportunities and denies children their right to grow up in a safe and healthy environment.
  • At the aggregate level, a high prevalence of poverty can have significant economic costs ranging from lost talent to health, as well as affecting equal opportunities.
  • At the international level, child poverty has been consistently recognised as a problem that Spain must address.

The OECD, the United Nations, and the EU have repeatedly issued reports warning about the high rates of child poverty in Spain and their likely social and economic consequences. For example, the European Commission, through the annual national reports of the Open Dialogue Mechanism, has asked Spain to adopt an ambitious program to reduce its child poverty rates almost every year since 2012. 

This project is based on three empirical observations about child poverty.

  1. First, child poverty rates in Spain are consistently higher than would be expected given its economic level.
  2. Second, child poverty rates have not declined with economic growth since the end of the Great Recession, while adult poverty rates have declined slightly.
  3. Third, recent policy reforms aimed at combating inequality and reducing poverty have resulted in improvements in employment and various indicators of well-being and inequality, but appear to have had a limited impact on reducing child poverty.

High child poverty rates in Spain, and more broadly in Southern Europe, have traditionally been associated with weak labour markets and underdeveloped social protection systems that do not adequately target families with children. However, neither improving labour market prospects nor introducing new policy initiatives seems to affect child poverty rates. This project seeks to address this puzzle by:

  1. Further exploring child poverty trends in Spain and (Southern) Europe.
  2. Expanding the literature on the relationship between child poverty and the labour market with a particular focus on poverty dynamics.
  3. Analysing the design and results of recent interventions implemented in Southern Europe.

In doing so, the project seeks to advance knowledge about the determinants of disappointing trends in child poverty in Spain and Southern Europe, and to develop proposals for improvement. It will further contribute to understanding the dynamics by which poverty occurs and is perpetuated over time. This dynamic perspective is essential because addressing child poverty requires, on the one hand, reducing the mechanisms that cause families to fall into this situation and, on the other, helping families to escape poverty. Policy efforts to improve the situation of poor households can benefit from research that sheds light on the determinants of child poverty and identifies the role of social policies and the labour market in these processes. Therefore, our research can inform strategies to increase the efficiency of social policies.