Child Poverty in Australia: Causes, Impacts, and Future Roadmap

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of child poverty in Australia, highlighting its significance as a pressing social issue. The essay explores various factors contributing to child poverty, including the vulnerability of indigenous children, families with single parents, and those from non-English speaking backgrounds. It discusses the global implications of child poverty, referencing statistics from UNICEF and the impact of malnutrition on child mortality. The essay delves into the historical context of child poverty in Australia, citing poverty rates and their implications for the country's future. It also examines the perspectives of Catholic social teachings, emphasizing the moral responsibility to care for children. Furthermore, the essay investigates the influence of family dynamics, living conditions, and economic factors on child poverty. It analyzes the role of government initiatives, such as individual income and skill development campaigns, and the impact of global events like economic crises and natural disasters. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for comprehensive strategies, including improved child protection systems and asset building, to address the root causes of child poverty and ensure a promising future for Australian children.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
Sociology
Student’s Name
University Name
Author’s Note

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Introduction
The following essay highlights the problem of child poverty in Australia in depth. The
problem of children property in the country is becoming hot issue day by day and their various
indigenous factors responsible for this highly. These issues are explored in depth in this essay
and how it impacts the poverty of children in the country are explained in detail. This essay
further inculcates a future roadmap that aims to explore the feasible opportunities that can be
adopted by the government as well as other interests for reducing the level of poverty among the
children of Australia.
Discussion
Special attention should be paid towards the issue of children poverty in Australia. As
described by Mendes (2017), the children in Australia under the greatest risk of poverty.
Such children are the indigenous children of Australia who are pertaining to families with sole
parent, children who are having your parent who involves children in paid work children of the
families where the principal income source is government supported income, children in the
public as well as private rental accommodation as well as children who are having parents who
come from non-English speaking backgrounds.
The scenario of children poverty is not a grave issue for Australia only. Rather it is a
global problem that needs to be acknowledged in a better way. Estimates from the UNICEF
shows that over 8 million children who are aged below five years in the developing countries,
specifically in Asia and Africa die each year. The cause of death is mainly preventable diseases.
In approximation, Saunders and Naidoo (2018), reports that almost half of these deaths are
accounted of malnutrition. Poor parentage with scarcity of nutritious diet in infancy is one of the

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causes of deaths of children around the globe. Malnutrition is the cause because of which, the
children do not develop proper immunity and subsequently they become prone to disease like
pneumonia, malaria and so on.
In order to highlight the issue with clarity Craig (2016), states that the poverty rate among
Australian children at the advent of the 21st century had been around 9. 5% which in turn implies
that almost half million of the Australian children are living under poverty. On the contrary the
rate of poverty among the adult or lower. The poverty among children is a further critical issue
since the futuristic development of the country is at stake when such huge percentage of children
in the country accountant as poverty stricken. The principles of Catholic social Teachings also
imply that the condition of poverty, especially among children is vehemently despised by the
church. One important principle of Catholics is that the children are the bearers of new ray of
hope for the earth and hence their proper care is one of the moral responsibilities of humankind.
As the nations are not able to do that, dignity of human life comes at stake. The catholic laws can
also be highlighted in this context, which states that it is the duty of the individual families as
well as the community to help the children to grow in to the community. The catholic view is
that the society has been marred by deepening distinction between the rich and poor. This is why
the capitalist economies are emerging which can be accounted as one of the major causes for
children poverty. The poverty rate among the children aged between 12 to 19 years is the
maximum and hence the cause of poverty among them needs to be analysed with great caution. It
is emphatically true that the children or as such young people are generally reliant upon parents
support whether they are living at home or they are away from home. The lack of family bonding
is one of the identified issues that is responsible for poverty among children in many cases. Over
one third of such children are living under squalid living conditions. Among them, about a

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billion that is about 27% are not having access to toilet facilities and this is why since the
children they are pertaining to open sewage. This condition is a stark reality for countries like
India where a major percentage of the rural population are still practising open sewage. Owing to
this, a large number of children die of water contamination also, especially in the developing
countries. Often it is found that children are not dependent on their parents, however living as a
unit with separate income with the parents themselves. This class of children are particularly
having highly operant poverty rates. In fact, Mendes (2017), reports that over 30% of the
children, globally, are living under absolute poor conditions. This implies that they are not able
to get access to four square meals in a day. However Waldfogel (2016), notifies that the issue of
children poverty in the country is actually very complex. Various factors including economics,
politics and geography as shipping its actual expense. Other than the issue highlighted above
Saunders, P., & Naidoo (2018), highlights that the children who are generally living in a remote
isolated communities in the indigenous population are mostly reliant upon the subsistence
agriculture having least access to health and education services are mostly pitted against poverty.
Exclusion and invisibility, as Skinner et al. (2017), suppose is, is MIT reason of poverty among
children. Poor children are hardly able to afford education cost and typically the girl children in
the ethnic minority families and never encouraged to attend education or go for work beyond a
certain year. If the social Independence is not developed and hence in the future years we are not
able to create a promising future for them.
Meaning of the families of young people in Australia are run through small businesses. However
the children who comes up from backgrounds as described above and not able to establish them
through such means also. Since they are secured and set apart from the beginning there access to
opportunities become Limited and as such they are not able to break the poverty cycle in future

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also. The individual income and skill development campaign has been launched by the
Australian government and the Asian minority protection associations of the country who are
basically welfare organisations working for the development of ethnic minority children. This
initiative supported about 1100 families and 66000 individual children so far in order to develop
skills as well as opportunities for living income generation (Khanam & Nghiem, 2016).
However, reports from various child development and engagement forum in Australia
shows that the situation and the current scenario of child poverty in Australia can be mended.
The United Nation has made progress in terms of reducing child poverty. The funds allocated for
reduction of child poverty has been utilised greatly by the Australian government and the
foremost outcome is that the child it’s have been halved and in fact extreme as well as life
threatening poverty is gradually reducing in most of the developing countries include in
Australia. However, in contrast Amato et al. (2016), states that new causes of child poverty have
been emerging parallely with the reduction of few other causes. Latest causes of urbanization are
Global economic crisis, the loss of traditional culture as well as the instrument of the frequency
of the natural disasters. The natural disasters severely hits various slum areas as well as low
income generating communities in Australia who are not able to recover from the force that hits
them. Many small businesses are destroyed by natural disasters also as because of which the
parents are forced to set free the children to work for generating income for the families at the
expense of losing their opportunities like education and basic life facilities that any child should
get.
In order to combat poverty in the US, nursing forum have been formed through public-
private partnerships. Theses forums receive aid from various agencies including the government

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to attend to local problems related to children’s poverty and they implement active child care of
all sorts for the children in particularly, the slums and the suburbs that are below the poverty line.
Global economic crisis is also generating which is aggravating due to various factors like
capitalism and consequent poverty. Urbanisation, as discussed is other important reason for
extreme poverty of children. . Lack of assets is a very vital cause that is caused by urbanization.
Schools, hospitals, clean water availability as well as the availability of nutritious food is
dependent upon high or moderate level of monetary availability that many of the parents are not
having in Australia. As Khanam & Nghiem (2016), states the problem is that the basic facilities
are becoming classified in the Australian society because of which the primary facilities like the
aforesaid cannot be availed by the people who are living under the poverty line. The child
protection systems are also corrupted to some extent in Australia because of which the children
who are getting protection under the child development and rural development act of Australia
also not being protected properly with funds being dismantled. This is why, in spite of the recent
development of various nursing forum for helping the cause of children poverty, the allocation of
nursing aid have not been implemented properly. In Australia, nurses receive about AUD $35
every day for serving 2 to 3 children who are under poverty.
Many forum are recently being developed that are helping people to understand the cause
of poverty in Australia among children. In many of the cases the cause is not the lack of natural
resources but rather that the children are being deprived of the capabilities as well as freedom
that they need to leave and develop themselves while preparing themselves for your future
endeavours. Either they have been associated with families who did not provide then the
opportunity to grow or they had been poor as well as deprived of the Assets and at the best they

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had been excluded from their societies and does suffered from the lack of power to instigate
change.
Conclusion
This essay highlights the reasons for children poverty in the country of Australia. This poverty is
primarily causative factor that is gradually aggravating as a hot issue for the country. As evident
from the analysis in the AC comma fund allocation as well as Student Welfare programme urban
gradually implemented by the government of Australia as well as the United Nation for the
Welfare of children. However dismantlement and irregular fund supply as well as lack of in
Vigilance of the project implementations are catering to the non availability of these funds to the
children. other than this other highly essential factors like lack of assets, power differential,
exclusion as well as invisibility are also identified in this is a as primary causes because of the
children are suffering such a fate in the country.

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Reference List
Amato, P. R., Booth, A., McHale, S. M., & Van Hook, J. (2016). Families in an era of increasing
inequality. Springer International Pu.
Craig, L. (2016). Contemporary motherhood: The impact of children on adult time. Routledge.
Khanam, R., & Nghiem, S. (2016). Family income and child cognitive and noncognitive
development in Australia: Does money matter?. Demography, 53(3), 597-621.
Mendes, P. (2017). Australia’s welfare wars: The players, the politics and the ideologies.
Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, 29(2), 145-148.
Saunders, P., & Naidoo, Y. (2018). Mapping the Australian Poverty Profile: A Multidimensional
Deprivation Approach. Australian Economic Review, 51(3), 336-350.
Skinner, C., Meyer, D. R., Cook, K., & Fletcher, M. (2017). Child maintenance and social
security interactions: The poverty reduction effects in model lone parent families across four
countries. Journal of Social Policy, 46(3), 495-516.
Waldfogel, J. (2016). Presidential address: The next war on poverty. Journal of Policy Analysis
and Management, 35(2), 267-278.