Tomorrows child

1
Tomorrows child

• Brian Harvey,
• Barnardos, Tallaght, 7th May 2009
• brharvey_at_iol.ie

2
Purpose of Tomorrows child

• Look at social trends affecting children
• Note little trend data until recently
• What does this mean for next 10-15 years?
• Not a policy report but does look at trends in
  policy, political environment
• Unusually rapidly changing background 2008
• Method
• Study of trends data
• Interviews with key informants

3
A word of caution about prediction

• There are the known knowns and the unknown
  knowns. And then there are the known unknowns.
  And then there are the unknown unknowns.
• Donald Rumsfeld

4
Demographic trends

• Rapid population growth, driven by in-migration,
  may now change.
• Numbers of children falling since 1981, but with
  a recovery turn of the century
• Families are smaller
• Childbirth concentrated on early to mid 30s.
  Parents are older now.
• Traditional family remains the norm
• Family patterns remarkably stable. Marriage more
  popular than ever.

5
Spatial, settlement trends

• Significant changes in settlement patterns
• Shift of population to eastern arc
• Distinct growth areas e.g. TAM, Dublin-Belfast
• Children living in new homes in low-density
  development
• Growth of apartment living, not yet for children
• Car as dominant mode for childrens living
  patterns (school, socializing, sport etc)
• Arrival of the new communities, with high skill
  levels and at age of family formation.
• Migration peak 2007, some migrants returned.
  Asylum peaked 2002, bottomed out.

6
Demography Tomorrows child

• Continued population growth
• Live in new homes in drift to the east
• Some may grow up in apartments
• Environmental issues more important
• No, one, even two siblings, not more
• Will grow up in a stable family
• Parents will both work for their lifetime
• Part of a more diverse population. Migrant and
  intermarried families. Visibility, vulnerability
  of Africans.

7
Social trends (1)

• A gradually falling but high rate of child
  poverty, always above the adult rate
• Increasing, but still low and costly level of
  early childhood education and care
• Persistence of inequalities, under-performance
  in education
• Girls increasingly outperform boys
• Schoolchildren increasingly work
• Children go to school by car

8
Social trends (2)

• Stable crime, youth crime rates
• Relatively low rates of illegal drug use
• Increasing securitization by government
• Persistence of vulnerability for some children
  at extreme risk Travellers, homeless, poor
  housing
• Children with disability live longer, but at risk
  of poverty

9
Social trends Tomorrows child

• More likely to get early childhood education and
  care, in multiple settings
• If from disadvantaged group or area, will be poor
• If Traveller child, a lifetime of adversity,
  hardship
• Will study longer, to 21
• At school, more take grinds
• Will grow up in a safe environment
• Will live in a new home with more personal space
• Will be surveilled more

10
Living trends (1)

• Positive health, living indicators, especially in
  new homes, high happiness rates
• Decline in mental ill-health, except for poor
• Improved father/mother sharing in households
• Most children have positive experience of school
• Curricula have improved, but schools still
  traditional values, feminization teacher force
• Continued attraction of traditional subjects
• Science, languages not improving
• Children ambitious for careers, mobile
• Widening, creative career choices

11
Living trends (2)

• One fifth of children with problem health
  behaviour e.g. obesity, alcohol, smoking
• Children high users of new technologies
• Have colonized distinct areas (web2)
• Follow parental political choices. Religious
  behaviour moving to continental norm. Few
  statements of secularization exc. marriage (22)
• Immigrant children highly motivated at school,
  endure racism, role of teachers
• Irish and European sense of identity

12
Living Tomorrows child

• Will grow up in a more shared, democratic home
• May go to wider range of schools
  (multi-denominational, gaelscoilleanna)
• Will have good and improving health, unless poor
• One fifth at risk of health endangerment
• Increasingly use new technologies in own space
• Formal religious adherence, not behaviour
• Schools will be more ethnically diverse
• Development of shared identities

13
Policy trends

• A low-tax, low-spend model of economic
  development we have will have inadequate
  services for children
• Unusually low rate of social spending cf EU27
• Childrens strategies proposed 1970
• Policies, architecture not set in place until
  2000. Concept of childrens rights
  (constitutional amendment?).
• Still serious deficits in services which put
  children at risk.
• Model, scope, scale, cost of early childhood
  education and care problematical.

14
European background

• EU has exercised faint but discernible influence
  in driving up social standards (e.g. childcare,
  women, discrimination)
• Ireland committed minimally to social values
  inherent in European project
• Flexicurity debate important for shaping
  childrens life patterns
• Ageing of Europe, then Ireland longer working
  lives

15
Europe Tomorrows child

• Europe will be pre-occupied with old people more
  than children, Ireland will follow
• Work to 70
• Start thinking pension very early
• Flexicurity many career changes, mobility,
  change jobs, re-train, re-skill, more
  self-reliant
• Underlying problem of orientation Berlin or
  Boston? Social services still informed by
  English-speaking, Atlantic model.

16
Tomorrows child surprises

• No sex or religion, please. We know almost
  nothing about sexual behaviour, religious belief
• How little school has changed. The great
  non-issue mixed schooling
• Many moral panics about children in areas of
  illegal drugs, smoking, alcohol, obesity,
  suicide, crime, the family, not justified by
  careful reading of figures, statistics
• Most children have remarkably positive
  indicators, many good sub-trends e.g. healthy
  eating, exercise
• This makes the poverty, hardship, lack of life
  chances, services for the few (20) all the more
  unacceptable

17
Tomorrows child the challenge

• Positive indicators dragged down by performance
  on child poverty, lack of services, educational
  outcomes, neglect, cost and availability of early
  childhood education
• Re-defining child poverty downward
• Rate in 2006 23.4 (relative poverty)
• Rate in 2008 7 (consistent poverty)
• Rate in 2009 End of independent data

18
Tomorrows child in disaster capitalism (Naomi
Klein) (1)

• Enormous damage from dismantling poverty,
  equality, childhood infrastructure. Loss of data,
  knowledge, know-how, legitimacy, champions.
• Making problem children invisible.
• Squeeze on education, welfare budgets (esp.
  qualification conditions).
• HSE cuts yet to come. Child protection?
• Government opting for 3-year programme of cuts.
  Parents will pay more for childrens education
  from diminished budgets.

19
Tomorrows child in disaster capitalism (2)

• Expect a rapid rise in child poverty as
  unemployment reaches 500,000.
• Disimprovement in social, health indicators.
• No state agency to monitor or defend.
• Loss of trust in government, institutions, with
  unpredictable political outcomes.
• Conservative political alternatives.
• NGOs challenge to re-build, re-construct,
  re-shape, with fresh partners, a new future for
  Tomorrows child.
• Thank you for your attention!