Poverty has more impact on children's development than family make-up

Researchers from the Institute of Education at the University of London, and the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London, found that children exposed to ongoing poverty scored approximately five to seven points less in the vocabulary part of their cognitive assessment at the age of five than those from more affluent families.

Their analysis of data from the Millennium Cohort Study, a survey of 18,819 babies born between September 2000 and January 2002 in the UK, also showed that children growing up in stable two-parent families had higher levels of cognitive ability than those in one-parent families or children who experienced a change in living arrangements.

However, researchers say that family instability alone makes no difference to how a child’s cognitive abilities have progressed by the age of five, but only when it is coupled with family poverty, parents’ education and a mother’s age, and early child characteristics.

‘Poverty and family instability are closely interlinked, as poverty affects families economically and socially, as well as on an emotional level. Economic hardship, for example, has been associated with a greater risk of relationship break-up,’ the research said.

It concludes, ‘What happens to children early in their lives is crucial for their future development. A major risk factor undermining children’s cognitive development is family poverty, in particular persistent poverty and adverse living conditions.’

‘The research confirms the devastating negative effect of income poverty on children’s early development. Persistent poverty is a crucial risk factor undermining children’s cognitive development – more so than family instability.’

• The study Family hardship, family instability, and cognitive development is published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.