Persistent child poverty Poverty at any time during childhood can be a damaging experience, but prolonged periods or repeated episodes of poverty can have an even greater corrosive effect. A study in the United Kingdom used data gathered at six points in children’s lives,10 from 9 months to 14 years of age (from 2000 to 2014). It examined several indicators of wellbeing – word recognition (a test of cognitive ability), self-assessed health, emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBDs), depression, and subjective well-being. Children who had experienced persistent income poverty (five or six time points) fared much worse at 14 years old than children who had only experienced poverty once (Figure 3). Most strikingly, children who had experienced persistent poverty were more than twice as likely to have EBDs as children who had only experienced poverty at one time point. Children who had experienced intermittent poverty (two to four time points out of six) also did less well than children with little or no history of poverty. Figure 3. Histories of poverty and child well-being at 14 years old Sources: See Technical Appendix Note: EBDs, emotional and behavioural difficulties; SWB, subjective well-being 30 24 Children with low score (%) 25 19.8 19.2 20 16.5 15.4 15.3 14.7 15 18.8 17.7 15.4 15.4 15 13.3 13.2 11.6 10.5 9.8 10 9.1 8.6 5.3 5 0 Low word recognition No poverty (49%) 13 Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth Poor/fair health One-off (13%) EBDs Intermittent (21%) Depression Low SWB Persistent (17%) Innocenti Report Card 18