CHILD POVERTY IN NORWAY

Even though child poverty receives a lot of attention in Norwegian politics and among the general public, Norway is still one of the coun-tries in the world where child poverty is at its lowest (figure 2). There are many explanations for this. Firstly, employment levels are high in Norway, including among mothers,

and differences in pay levels are small. This contributes to generally high household incomes. Secondly, there are a number of distribution elements in Norwegian policy that help to equalise differences created in the employment market. We will come back to this subject later.

FIGURE 2: Percentage of children under the age of 18 who live in families with an income below 60 per cent of equivalised income⁵ in 2013.

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

RomaniaBulgariaGreeceSerbiaSpain LithuaniaPortugalMaltaItaliy Luxembourg New member states (12 countries)EU (28 countries)United KingdomSwitzerlandHungarySloveniaSlovakiaBelgiumSwedenEstoniaCroatiaAustriaPolandIrelandCyprusFranceLatvia Germany (until 1990, the former territory of the FRG)Czech RepublicNetherlandsDenmarkNorwayFinlandIceland

Source: Eurostat’s databank, table ilc_li02, read 1 April 2015

5 Equivalising the household income means that the size of the family has been taken into consideration when calculating the percentage of poverty. The equivalisation scale used by Eurostat allocates the first adult over the age of 18 in the household a weighting of 1,

Increase in child poverty in Norway

Even though there are fewer children who live in families with a low income in Norway than in other countries, the proportion of Norwe-gian children living in families with incomes below 60 per cent of the median income for

at least three years in a row has been stead-ily increasing (figure 3). There has been no equivalent increase for the population as a whole, and since 2009–2011 the proportion of children living in families with a low income has been equally large as the proportion of the entire population with a low income.

FIGURE 3: Percentage of children between the ages of 0 and 17 who live in a family with an income below 50 and 60 per cent of the median income over a three-year period, and the percentage of the entire population (excluding students) who have incomes below this level.

2 4 6 8

10 All ages (excluding students)

(EU scale, 60% of median) All children aged 0–17 (EU scale, 60% of median) All children aged 0–17 (OECD scale, 50% of median)

2011-2013 2010-2012 2009-2011 2008-2010 2007-2009 2006-2008 2005-2007 2004-2006 2003-2005 2002-2004 2001-2003 1999-2001 1997-1999

Source: Epland et al. 2011 for 1997/1999–2006/2008, Statistics Norway’s statistics databank for the other years, tables 09571 and 10498, read 1 April 2015

There are various possible explanations for the increase in the proportion of children liv-ing in families with a low income. Epland and Kirkeberg (2015) have shown that the majority of the increase is due to immigrant children increasingly being overrepresented in the low-income group. During the period 2004–

2006, children with an immigrant background made up less than 39 per cent of children in families with a persistent low income. In 2011–2013, the equivalent proportion was over 50 per cent. By comparison, children with an immigrant background made up approximate-ly 12 per cent of all children during the period.

The increase in the proportion of immigrant children in the low-income group is due to the fact that there has been an increase in the number of children with an immigrant

background over the last ten to 15 years, and there has been an increase in the number of children with a background from countries where the risk of poverty has traditionally been high. The high risk of poverty in certain groups of countries is again due to the fact that the adults have problems with entering the Norwegian employment market. There is insufficient space here to discuss employment among immigrants, but please see for example NOU 2011:7 for a thorough discussion of this topic.

Another cause of the increase in children living in families with a persistent low income is the fact that child benefit has not been increased since 1996, as a result of which its purchasing power has been reduced. In 2001 the supplement for additional children was

also discontinued. For families with a low income, child benefit makes up a significant part of their income, and when its real value falls this affects the situation of these families (NOU 2009: 10). The distribution committee showed that if child benefit had been adjusted in line with the consumer price index from 1996 to 2006, the number of people with a low income would have been reduced by almost 30,000 (NOU 2009: 10, page 232).

A third matter that can influence the trend is the discontinuation of cash benefit for three-year-olds as of 2006.⁶ No studies have yet been carried out to investigate this, so its signifi-cance on the proportion with a low income is unknown.

Differences between children

It has already been noted that children with an immigrant background are strongly overrep-resented in the low-income group. The most important explanation of this, as previously mentioned, is that on average there is a lower rate of employment in many immigrant groups than in the population as a whole (NOU

2011:7) and at the same time their families are larger (Kirkeberg and Epland 2014). Employ-ment is particularly low among immigrant women. In addition to this, a number of immi-grant groups have a lower level of education than average (Blom and Henriksen 2008), as a result of which these are at risk of ending up in poorly paid jobs even if they do find employ-ment (see Fløtten et al. 2011: 45). The vulnera-ble financial situation of parts of the immigrant population is also illustrated by the fact that many receive financial support from the state

(NOU 2011:7, table 9.2). Therefore, it is not the immigrant background in itself that ex-plains why these children are overrepresented in the low-income group, but the fact that the parents have many of the characteristics that contribute to increased risk of poverty.

The factor of greatest significance for a fam-ily’s risk of poverty is the adults’ level of em-ployment. Whereas 8 per cent of all children under the age of 18 live in a household where no one is employed, for children in low-income families the proportion is almost 50 per cent (2011 figures) (Kaur 2013: 61). Children in single-provider households where no adult is in employment have an even greater risk of poverty (Nadim and Nielsen 2008).

Level of employment is closely correlated with level of education. People in the low-income group have a lower level of education than the population in general. Whereas 16 per cent of all children under the age of 18 live in a family where the main provider has a low income, for children in low-income families the proportion is 34 per cent (2011 figures) (Kaur 2013: 62).

Children in low-income families also differ from other children in that the family more often receives financial assistance (social assistance benefit) (5.9 per cent of all children, compared with 29.3 per cent of children in low-income families) and more often receives housing benefit (6.5 per cent of all children, compared with 34.3 per cent of children in low-income families) (Kaur 2013: 63). The fact that low-income families are more financially vulnerable is, however, not a cause, but a con-sequence, of poverty.

6 Cash benefit for two-year-olds was discontinued in 2012, but that cannot have affected