Poverty, a rising concern among children

66% of children consider that there are (either a few or many) poor students in their schools, and 50% of them think that there are a lot of poor people in France. These figures are the result of the barometer of poverty and precariousness carried out by Ipsos for the Secours populaire and released each September. Part of the study is devoted to adult respondents, but the barometer also tracks the perception of poverty among children ” for ten years “recalls Henriette Steinberg, the general secretary of Secours populaire.

“We note a 24% increase in ten years in the proportion of children who think that there are poor people in their family”she indicates, the total of children answering that there is ” a little ” Where ” a lot “ of poverty in their immediate surroundings amounting to 44%. Responses were collected online in mid-June, from a representative sample of 500 children aged 8-14.

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Children are mostly aware of the difficulties affecting their classmates, at class or school level: 71% of them know that some students do not go on vacation for lack of money, 67% are aware that the most disadvantaged never go to the cinema, the museum or the amusement park, and 57% find that some children, always within the class or school, “live in an apartment or house that is too small and in poor condition”.

“Dazzling” progress

Even more worrying, the proportion of children who say they are affected by these same difficulties is increasing, even if the awareness of being themselves on the line is weaker than when the precariousness concerns other pupils: the children are 93% have no problems going to the dentist, doctor, or getting glasses, up from 97% in 2019. 91% say they can “eating in sufficient quantities and in a varied way”, compared to 97% in 2019. Only 80% of them say they go on vacation at least once a year – but this proportion is stable compared to other years. On the side of adult respondents, on the other hand, the item of expenditure devoted to holidays is the first cited as posing the most difficulties, ahead of transport.

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For Henriette Steinberg, the increase in the number of children who are aware of poverty in their immediate surroundings is “dazzling” and corresponds to what the Secours populaire observes in the field, where the association says it comes to the aid of categories of the population “which were not touched before”. “You also have to measure what it means for a child, psychologically, to have to deal with issues of concern that he is not supposed to have”remarks Henriette Steinberg.

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