Childhood Wellbeing and
Social Protection
Andy Sumner
20 July 2009
Buzz groups
• 5 mins activity in pairs
• How does childhood poverty differ to adult
poverty?
• Identify 3-5 ways childhood poverty differs
Key messages
• Childhood poverty, vulnerability and wellbeing are distinct
from adult poverty and wellbeing, so policy design, and
implementation processes need to be informed accordingly;
• A ‘3-dimensional’ human wellbeing lens (3D WB) is useful to
capture that distinctiveness in a holistic way because a 3D WB
approach builds on minimum or ‘basic’ needs and rights to a
focus on the enabling conditions for a ‘flourishing childhood’.
• A 3D WB lens implies different ways of thinking about the
causes of child poverty, types of policy intervention, and
advocacy.
Contents
1. What is child poverty? How does childhood poverty differ to
adult poverty?
2. What is a ‘wellbeing’ lens?
3. What is 3D child wellbeing (3D WB)?
4. How does 3D WB add value?
5. Does 3D WB helps us with:
– causes of child poverty? types of child policy
intervention? thinking about children and social
protection? thinking about child advocacy?
6. A work-in-progress model of child advocacy
7. Conclusions
1. Defining child poverty
“Children living in poverty are deprived of nutrition,
water and sanitation facilities, access to basic healthcare services, shelter, education, participation and
protection, and that while a severe lack of goods and
services hurts every human being, it is most
threatening and harmful to children, leaving them
unable to enjoy their rights, to reach their full
potential and to participate as full members of the
society”.
UN General Assembly (10 Jan. 2007)
1b. How does childhood poverty differ to adult poverty?
• ‘Traditional’ income proxies (even more) problematic
• Dynamic life stage – different/evolving needs, and socially
determined rights/responsibilities
• Greater heterogeneity – age, parental status + gender,
ethnicity, disability status, etc
• Relational nature - greater vulnerability and less autonomy in
decisions effecting their lives
• Long run impacts and inter-generational transmissions
1c. In sum, childhood poverty is…
• More subjective: Differing needs depending on the stage of
lifecycle; heterogeneous nature - gender, ethnicity, disability
status, age and parental status, etc. childhood meaning
defined by context/culture.
• More relational: Greater vulnerability for physiological and
psychological reasons; reliance on adults/carer; less
autonomy/power - the conventional voicelessness of children
has a particular quality and intensity; childhood meaning
defined by context/culture.
2. What is a ‘wellbeing’ lens?
Wellbeing is…
What a person has;
Material wellbeing
What a person can do
with what they have;
i.e. practical welfare
and standards of
living
How they think about
what they have and
can do.
McGregor
(2007:317)
Relational
wellbeing
i.e. personal and
social relations
Subjective
wellbeing
i.e. values,
perceptions and
experiences
Wellbeing
research
seeks to build
on human
development,
basic needs
and rights
approaches
3. What is ‘3D child wellbeing’?
3D child wellbeing arises from a combination of:
• what a child has;
• what a child can do with what they have;
• and how a child thinks about what they have and can do.
It involves the interplay of:
• the resources that a child is able to command;
• what they are able to achieve with those resources and what
needs and goals they are able to meet;
• the meaning that they give to the goals they achieve and the
processes in which they engage.
Source: Adapted from McGregor (2007:317).
3b. What is a ‘3D child wellbeing’ lens?
What a child has;
What a child can do
with what they have;
How a child thinks
about what they have
and can do.
Material wellbeing
i.e. MDGs and UNCRC child
survival; child development
Relational wellbeing
i.e. UNCRC - child
protection; participation
and Innocenti Scorecard
peer/family relationships,
behaviours/risks
Subjective wellbeing
i.e. UNICEF Innocenti score
card – SWB of health,
personal and schooling
4. How does a ‘3D WB’ lens add value?
• Generally: integrates relational and subjective perspectives on
human wellbeing and positive perspective - what people can
rather than can’t do, be or feel and three domains
dynamically interact.
• For children: Research suggests that insufficient attention
given to subjective and relational dimension of children’s
wellbeing such as time to play, affection from family
members, feelings of social exclusion by peers, and shabby
and/or dirty clothing are equally important concerns but also
the material domain is determined in part by the relational
and subjective domains (Redmond, 2007; UNICEF; 1999).
4b. How does a ‘3D WB’ lens add value?
• Inter-generational transmission (IGT) of poverty: Most recent
review of empirical work notes material and non-material
determinants:
– Relational aspects - quality of parenting, nurturing and
socialisation, early exposure to violence, fostering,
adoption and orphanhood, class and caste, religion and
ethnicity;
– subjective aspects - early childbearing, education and skill
acquisition and child labour, cultural and psychosocial
factors, religion, ethnicity.
Source: Bird (2007).
5. Does 3D WB helps us with causes of
childhood poverty?
The case of the
IGT of child
malnutrition
Material Dimensions
of Wellbeing –
standard of living
Relational Dimensions
of Wellbeing –
personal and social
relations
Subjective Dimensions
of Wellbeing – values,
perceptions,
experiences
What is
transmitted?
Under-nutrition as
measured by agespecific height
and weight
Physiological
mechanisms, via
growth in the
womb;
Lack of
information on
what a healthy
baby looks like
Rules about who
deserves the most
and best food in
the household
Differential wages
for males and
females, dowry
and property IGT
Lack of agency of
women to
negotiate child
care.
Eating down in
pregnancy
(avoiding too
much weight gain)
Lack of external
norms about
healthy child size
How is it
transmitted?
Determinants of
transmission
(policy
interventions)
Inability or
unwillingness to
interact with
more diverse
group of people,
5b. Does 3D WB help with types of policy?
Material Dimensions
of Wellbeing –
standard of living
Relational Dimensions
of Wellbeing –
personal and social
relations
Subjective Dimensions
of Wellbeing – values,
perceptions,
experiences
Capabilities
Interventions
Asset transfer
schemes; credit
and savings
schemes (e.g.
MDG 1)
Conditions
Interventions
Land reform;
The regulation of
markets (e.g.
monopoly
regulation)
Human and skills
development
schemes;
Empowerment
programmes (e.g.
MDG 2).
Legal Reform;
Rights-based
approaches;
Governance
Reforms.
The social and
cultural
dimensions of
education
programmes (e.g.
MDGs 2, 3, 5, 6).
Societal
campaigns for
social and cultural
reform (e.g.
dowry campaign)
5c. Does 3D WB help with social protection?
Type of SP
Material Dimensions
of Wellbeing –
standard of living
Protective (social
assistance)
social transfers;
disability benefit;
pension schemes;
social services
social transfers;
- funeral societies
Preventive (Insurance
and diversification)
Promotive (economic
opportunities)
social transfers; school
feeding; starter packs;
public works
programmes
Transformative
(addressing underlying
social vulnerabilities)
Land reform;
The regulation of
markets (e.g.
monopoly regulation)
Relational Dimensions
of Wellbeing –
personal and social
relations
Subjective Dimensions
of Wellbeing – values,
perceptions,
experiences
livelihoods diversification; social insurance;
savings clubs;
access to credit; asset
transfers; access to
common property
resources
Legal Reform;
Rights-based
approaches;
Governance Reforms.
Societal campaigns for
social and cultural
reform (e.g. dowry
campaign); promotion
of minority rights
5d. Does 3D WB help with child advocacy?
Child
wellbeing
dimension
Material
Subjective
Relational
Which types of
power prevail in that
dimension?
Material political
economy (Marx)
What to change? Implications for child
advocacy?
Control over resources.
Promote changes to ‘voice’ - children’s
direct participation in policy processes
and greater use of all kinds of child
evidence in policy processes
Discourse (Foucault) Control over values, identities,
conditionings. Promoting changes to
‘values’ – greater generation and use of
participatory research in policy
processes.
Institutions/formal
Control over norms, conventions,
and informal ‘rules of behaviours. Promoting changes to
the game’ (Bordieu ‘visibility’ - via research evidence use in
or North)
policy processes
6. An w-i-p approach to child advocacy
What are the ingredients of child advocacy?
Networking
What determines policy change?
Policy actors
Messaging
(i.e. material
political economy)
Types of policy change
Policy narratives
(i.e. discourse)
Opportunism
Political context
(i.e. institutions)
Policy
content
Changes in
policy
procedures
Changes in
policy
implement
ation
Agenda
setting
Policy
framing
6b. Ingredients of influence?
 Networking - actors/networks: ‘Knit-working’ or the building
of coalitions of champions around ideas, that lead to change.
 Messaging - narratives/stories: Sticky stories’ or ‘rallying
ideas’ in the content and processes of knowledge generation
and translation play a role in whether research is used.
 Opportunism - Institutions/contexts: ‘Strategic opportunism’
or the role of mapping contexts to identify windows of
opportunity for influence (and not forgetting the role of
serendipity).
7. Conclusions
• Childhood poverty, vulnerability and wellbeing are distinct
from adult poverty, and wellbeing, so policy design,
implementation processes need to be informed accordingly;
• A ‘3-dimensional’ human wellbeing lens (3D WB) is useful to
capture that distinctiveness in a holistic way because a 3D WB
approach builds on minimum or ‘basic’ needs and rights to a
focus on the enabling conditions for a ‘flourishing childhood’.
• A 3D WB lens implies different ways of thinking about the
causes if child poverty, types of policy intervention, and
advocacy.