Work in Progress - Child Poverty

Around one in four children in Northern Ireland lives in poverty. Growing up without enough money means that children miss out on opportunities and this widens inequalities, contributing to poorer health, educational and wellbeing outcomes. The Executive’s Child Poverty Strategy, published in March 2016, set out the vision to eradicate child poverty in the future. The strategy ended in May 2022.

The aim of this study is to provide an overview of child poverty in Northern Ireland and assess the effectiveness of the Child Poverty Strategy in achieving its aims of reducing the number of children in poverty and the impact of poverty on children. In undertaking this study, we will examine a range of issues including:

• The nature and scale of child poverty in Northern Ireland:
• The impact of child poverty of a range of outcomes;
• The effectiveness of the strategy in reducing child poverty:
• The quality and timeliness of poverty data and how this affects ability to measure progress and plan future actions;
• The extent and nature of joined up working in both strategy development and implementation; and
• An overview of progress towards a new anti-poverty strategy.

We aim to publish this report in early 2024.