Review Of Lindsay Mitchell'S Article ‘Why Child Poverty Targets Make No Sense”
Child poverty is a deep-seated historical issue spread globally with significant effects amongst millions of individuals. Since the early 1990s, New Zealand (NZ) faced substantial levels of child poverty, having extensive consequences on NZ children and families. NZ individuals suffered difficulties such as insufficient funds and the lack of access to resources and goods, prominently enabling them to entirely participate in life opportunities. In that, children are unable to access their nutritional needs or material resources required to accommodate a basic lifestyle. In this essay, I will be analyzing Lindsay Mitchell's text, ‘Why child poverty targets make no sense' and I will be exploring her view upon child poverty. Furthermore, I will be explaining the social theories Mitchell comes from her expressed arguments also, point out what Mitchell leaves silent on child poverty. I then will discuss policy initiatives that may result from this understanding of the problem. What key ‘problem' does the author identify in the text?
Mitchell's main argument is that the way child poverty targets are measured by the NZ government are ineffective because they do not account for the fluidity of income changes. Mitchell instead, links the underlying root of poverty to parental state dependency and a lack of parental responsibility and describes target measures as ‘fraught, and probably futile and foolish'. Child poverty is measured in numerous ways by NZ governing groups with some measurements used more frequently than others. There are two ultimate elements in measuring levels of poverty being an income measure and living standards measure. Mitchell assumes that child poverty is an issue due to the individual's poor choices and life decisions that incontestably resulted in their poor circumstances. Mitchell uses her own living circumstances as an example to illustrate how her family became ‘poorer' rather than ‘richer' after her family sized reduced from 2 to 1. This is because the individual required more financial support after moving out, than when they were part of the ‘official' household. Mitchell refers to this as proof of the current statistical measurements do not capture what is actually happening in individual households. Therefore, Mitchell emphasizes the overall argument of measurements being inaccurate in the sense that her family becomes richer due to fewer individuals living in the household but when in reality, she had become poorer.
Mitchell then highlights the key problem of that Child poverty in NZ is caused by parental state dependency caused by high levels of individuals being reliant on the benefit. In that, Mitchell associates parental state dependency in conjunction with poor parent choices and low levels of responsibility. Mitchell pinpoints a strong correlation between child poverty and welfare dependence, suggesting that NZ needs to minimize the levels of benefit-dependent families. In saying that, Mitchell indicates that there is also a correlation between the level of state dependency by individuals and the occurrence of neglect or abuse, implying that as state dependency increased, child neglect also increases. What assumptions or values underlie this understanding of the ‘problem'?
Because there is a really strong emphasis on individual choices and state dependency in this article Mitchell comes from a Neoconservative side of a neoliberalism viewpoint. This is because she speaks about child poverty as an individualistic problem, rooted form the individuals own poor choices. Neoliberals strongly assume that there is individual freedom of choice and that everyone should make rational decisions as there are no constrained choices. Therefore, Mitchell believes that child poverty is a real prospect of the deep-seated issues connected with parent state/benefit dependency. Neoconservatives that adapt from neoliberals shift the blame from the decisions made of a dominant group, (which tends to be those of higher status), onto the state and the poor and believe that the government offer too much, and in this case, being the benefit policy. Neoconservatives advise that well-intended policies and behavior can, and often produce unintended harmful consequences that backfire, harming those they see as undeserving. In this context, Mitchell believes that welfare dependency is a social disruption and is produced by a freewheeling market economy that encourages a perpetual lower-class of the uneducated and unemployed. Neoconservatives believe that ‘risk factors' reflect causes of vulnerability and welfare dependency. Neoconservatism outlines that poverty is culturally determined by values, attitudes and lack of aspirations transmitted across generations and neoconservatives tend to associate those factors with the poor, adopting certain behaviors in correspondence to alcohol/drug abuse, crime and exploitation. Mitchell believes that these behaviors are emphasized by an individual's constant reliance on the welfare state support constantly offered to them, which ultimately increases child poverty rates as those individuals show no interest in becoming employed or determined in improving their circumstances. What policy initiatives would result from this understanding of the ‘problem?
Since Mitchell identifies the key problem as individuals being too reliant on state dependency, she holds the belief that there should be less welfare state dependency and more employment and individual responsibility which would be an effective solution to improve child poverty overall. Neoconservatives thoroughly believe in the elements of the ideas of the value of work, discipline and virtue, arguing that people should make more individualistic and rational choices with less government intervention as the government is too accommodating, ineffectively making people too comfortable in settling in poor circumstances. Neoconservatives support the idea of government-offered welfare systems, but also believe that these programs should help people become independent rather than make them more dependent upon the government. In this instance, Mitchell understands the concept of the benefit and recognizes the effects of it, but also perceives it to have more unfavorable factors towards economy fluidity than good. Neoconservatives believe into lower income tax but at the same time, increase government spending for their policy initiatives as they believe that minimizing tax would increase freedom of choice and encourage minimal state intervention. This is because tax essentially enables an individual to accord to their personal finances and restricts them from perusing desired life opportunities. What does this understanding of the ‘problem' ignore or leave silent?
I will use the Feminist theory to support what Mitchell ignores or leaves silent because she does not consider the socio-economic inequalities faced by single mothers who find themselves on the benefit to be somewhat financially stable to provide for themselves and their families. Mitchell does not mention the concept of the feminization of poverty which is fundamentally the burden of poverty amongst women, specifically mothers, due to lower incomes and life opportunities than men, as it has been established that women are more likely to become single parents. Feminists argue that there remains a lack of political will to implement policy change that addresses the gendered divisions of labor, our relatively low wages and fairly poor social benefits. I will also use the anti-racist theory to further elaborate what Mitchell leaves silent throughout her text. Ethnicity is not mentioned nor are any minority groups spoken about which is mainly of Maori and European/Pacifika descent, in NZ. There are two types of anti-racist theories (liberal and radical anti-racist) and I think radical anti-racist is the most appropriate to connect Mitchells viewpoint with rather than a liberal anti-racist viewpoint which focuses on individual rights and freedoms of ethnic minorities. Radical anti-racists focus on the collective power of the dominant ethnic majority over ethnic minority groups which is evident throughout this article because Mitchell does not mention the minority in the first place. Mitchell instead, focuses on her personal experiences within her household and her class group as the prime focus of the article, ignoring generational history or current exploitive poverty circumstances in NZ today. The policy idea of institutional racism and how we can structure the welfare state to be less punitive and supportive to those in poverty and for minority groups is also ignored. How could policy initiatives differ if the ‘problem' were understood differently?
Feminists emphasize the disadvantaged issue of gendered division of labor and gender-based social benefits, specifically due to their low wages. In that, they suggest an intersectoral health strategy to improve socio-economic inequities in order to improve child health, specifically from pregnancy through to age three, as it is suggested that, this is when the greatest potential exists for achieving improvement. Other health actions proposed by feminists would be to improve access to immunization services to improve immunization coverage in all groups, including the need to enroll all young people with a known general practice and well-child provider at birth. This is because there is a lack in immunization services is decile one, two and three areas, ultimately restraining targeted kids from the access to health benefits. Policy initiatives like this determine more sustainability on struggles and put a control force upon reducing child poverty, essentially making lives of mothers and children easier and to some degree, managed in a more sufficient way. Anti-racists propose that disadvantaged children are not placed at center focus and that current policies have failed to directly encounter child poverty, allowing inequalities among individuals to grow. Anti-racists would suggest educational methods that encourage a better-balanced spectrum of providing basic life requirements for the young. A way this can go about is to improve access to quality ECE for tamariki Maori and Pasifika children in a way that not only recognizes but affirms their cultural views.
Another strategy would be to potentially extend the government funded equivalent of 20 hours of free childcare to whanau-led services such as Playcentre and Te Kohanga Reo, also to ensure that fees for these serviced is adequate. These antiracist policy initiatives would reduce child poverty amongst ethnic groups and/or minorities who are disproportionately living on low-income wages but would accommodate different cultural norms.
