Children are poor because their mothers are poor. But is Labour serious about tackling it?

It seems obvious but it’s worth repeating: children are poor because their mothers are poor. One important measure of a nation’s success should be how well its children are faring. By this standard, the UK hasn’t been doing so well for the last 15 years. Since 2010, an additional 700,000 children are growing up in poverty.

What’s more worrying, more children are facing deeper levels of poverty now, with 1.9 million children – one in eight – considered to be facing material deprivation. Beyond the immediate harm to their wellbeing and their childhood, growing up in poverty leaves long lasting scars well into adulthood, from poorer health to lower earnings. And when children lose out, so do communities and the economy, leaving millions of children’s potential untapped. 

It is therefore encouraging to see a government once again determined to address child poverty.  Within weeks of being elected, the new Labour government announced a Child Poverty Taskforce promising a comprehensive 10-year strategy. 

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But if Labour is serious, it must start where child poverty begins: with the financial insecurity of mothers. As we did back in 1999, when the last Labour government was committing to address child poverty, the Women’s Budget Group is again reminding politicians and policymakers that their solutions will only be as effective as the seriousness with which they consider women’s poverty.  

Our new polling with YouGov shows how women continue to be the shock absorbers of poverty, with more than one in four mums (28%) constantly or often worrying about being able to afford to meet their children’s needs, compared to 18% of dads. Women’s poverty is too often a consequence of the unequal distribution of the essential (yet unpaid) work involved in raising a child. This makes it harder to have a full-time job and earn a decent wage. And because women are often the sole adult responsible for a child, this act of juggling paid work and childrearing becomes even harder to do, with financial consequences for them and their children.  

Even in two-parent households, family finances improve when both parents work – and crucially, when women are financially independent, they and their children are better protected if circumstances change. 

Encouraging mothers into work is about proofing theirs and their children’s present and future against financial hardship. First, we need an early education and childcare system that is similar to our education system: accessible, universal and free at the point of use (or at least much more affordable than it currently is). Second, we need flexible work as the default across our labour market and strong workers’ protections building on the current Employment Rights’ Bill that ensure mother won’t be penalised for their caring responsibilities. And finally, we need to spread the childrearing work more fairly between mothers and fathers. A review of our parental leave system is the right place to start. 

But increasing mothers’ working hours and their earnings can only go so far. Two parents might be working full-time in jobs on average pay and still struggle to make ends meet. And for many women and their families, more paid work may simply not be an option, either because of a disability, caring logistics in larger families, or the sheer lack of childcare alternatives. It’s no surprise then that our polling revealed that mothers were more likely than fathers to say that changes to social security would help their current financial situation the most. 

Labour must repair Britain’s austerity-frayed social security system, instead of threatening further cuts, if it is serious in its commitment to tackle child poverty. Social security should complement families’ incomes and support families when it’s not realistic to expect mothers to work. It should play a much more preventative role than it does – after all, supporting women and their children out of poverty is harder than preventing them from becoming poor in the first place. In order to achieve this, the first obvious step is to get rid of the punitive measures that are directly driving families into hardship, like the two-child limit and the benefit cap. The initial cost is negligible when we add in the savings made in other departments like health for the thousands of children that will no longer be living in poverty. 

As much as possible, benefits should be individual and non-means tested at household level, so that entitlement to them should not depend on the behaviour or income of a partner. These principles protect women and their children from poverty because they reduce women’s dependence on others, protecting their financial present and future. 

And crucially, our social security should incentivise mothers to work but not penalise them when they are unable to. We need work coaches to have higher empathy and understanding towards the complicated and often impossible juggling acts many mothers do, especially those parenting solo, to combine a paid job with childrearing. The polling we commissioned found that single parents, most of whom are women, were more likely to report that better job centre support would help their financial situation the most than parents in couples. 

Maximising mothers’ incomes should therefore be the priority for the ministerial child poverty taskforce, but working across government departments, the strategy must also tackle the crushing cost of essentials, especially housing, energy and food. With these costs rising faster than wages, government intervention is necessary. Investing in social housing, expanding home-grown renewables to shield families from energy price shocks, capping food prices, and rolling out universal free school meals are all measures that would make a tangible difference. 

The Child Poverty Taskforce has a big job ahead. It begins with recognising the inextricable link between women’s poverty and child poverty. With political will, targeted investment, and a strategy that focuses on women’s financial independence, this government can start to turn the tide. The moral and economic stakes – and potential wins – couldn’t be higher. 

Dr Sara Reis is the deputy director of the Women’s Budget Group.

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