One in five city kids miss out on basics due to low income
ONE in every five children in Glasgow missed out on basic necessities because of their family’s low income, new figures have revealed.
Across Scotland, 21 per cent of children were living without essentials such as a winter coat or somewhere outside to play.
The ‘children in families with limited resources’ measure looks at families that have both low income and cannot afford three or more out of a list of 22 basic necessities for their child.
Glasgow had the highest proportion of children living in poverty, according to the experimental research with 43 per cent, followed by South Ayrshire, where 36 per cent of children are in struggling families.
East Lothian and Aberdeenshire were the two leastaffected areas, with each having just 5 per cent of children included in the poverty measure.
The official Scottish Government statistics also show that children were more likely to have limited resources compared to Scotland as a whole if they lived in single-parent households (41 per cent), or households with disabled adults (33 per cent) or four or more children (39 per cent).
Where there were at least two adults in employment in the home, just 5 per cent of children were affected compared to 39 per cent where not.
Professor Steve Turner, from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) Scotland, said: “This latest data tells us that one in five children in Scotland continue to miss out on what most parents would see as a basic right, such as having a warm winter coat, having some new clothes, or an outdoor space to play in.
“The Scottish Government has acknowledged that poverty remains a problem and has recently published a series of proposals that aim to reduce relative child poverty to less than 10 per cent by 2030. Babies born today will be children in 2030, so the time for talking is over.”