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    • Table: summary (%)
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What does this mean?

In Kids Stats being less well off than others refers to children and young people who live in households with less than 50 per cent of the median equivalent income.

Why is it important?

Children and young people develop understandings of their own situation and a sense of self-worth through comparing themselves with others. Children and young people in low-income families are aware of differences in resources across areas and families and “begin to experience the reality of their ‘differentness’ at an early age” [1].

Children and young people from low income families can feel excluded, shamed and stigmatised, with ‘missing out’ being a common experience. They experience pressure to keep up with their peers, such as keeping up appearances and having the right brand names and clothes [2]. At the most extreme end of the spectrum, some children and young people report avoiding contact with their peers as a way of coping with being less well off than them [3].

Some families haven’t got enough money to buy their children new clothes so they are always getting handed down clothes from their older siblings and then those younger kids are going to be like, I never get anything new and they are going to feel left out of things. And then they will get put down at school, just from what I’ve seen. They get put down at school. And that makes them in themselves not as good. (15 years old)

Indicator

The indicator used in Kids Stats to monitor being less well off than others is:

The percentage of children and young people aged 0 to 15 years living in income units with less than 50 per cent of the median equivalent income.

In this indicator, income units refer to families living in households in which income is assumed to be shared between parents and dependent children [4]. For readability, the term ‘household’ will be used to refer to income unit.

Main findings

• In 2001/2002, 10.7% of children and young people aged 0 to 15 years in NSW were in poverty
• The proportion of children and young people in poverty living in one parent families was more than twice as high as those living in couple families (in 2001/2002: 17.8% and 8.8% respectively)

Notes:
[1] Middleton, S., Ashworth, K., Walker, R. (1994). Family fortunes: Pressures on parents and children in the 1990s. Child Poverty Action Group: London.
[2] Daly, M., Leonard, M. (2002). Against all odds: Family life on a low income in Ireland. Combat Poverty Agency: Dublin.
[3] Van der Hoek, T. (2005). Through children’s eyes: An initial study of children’s personal experiences and coping strategies growing up poor in an affluent Netherlands. Innocenti Research Centre: Florence.
[4] Australian Bureau of Statistics (2003). Survey of income and housing costs Australia – Confidential Unit Record File Technical Paper, Cat No. 2039.0.55.001. ABS, Canberra.
[5] Abello, A., Harding., A. (2004). The dynamics of child poverty in Australia. National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, Discussion Paper No. 60. NATSEM, Canberra.
[6] Greenwell, H., Lloyd, R., Harding A. (2001). An introduction to poverty measurement issues. National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling. Discussion Paper No. 55. NATSEM, Canberra.

For further information on median equivalent income and poverty measurement, please refer to references [5,6] or follow the link to http://www.kids.nsw.gov.au/files/NATSEMfinalreport2.pdf.

For details of the references and to find out more about the data follow the link to Glossary and further information.