How much of a priority are Black and minority ethnic children in tackling poverty?

The Scottish Government will publish the second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan later in March. Ahead of this Kirsty McNeill, Research and Policy Officer at the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights, outlines some of the organisation’s key asks of the new delivery plan, with a focus on data.

We are now less than two years away from the Scottish Government’s interim milestone of reducing relative child poverty to less than 18% with current levels at 26%. However, the latest statistics show that 48% of children in Black and minority ethnic (BME) families were living in relative poverty. Without urgent and immediate actions, the child poverty targets will not be met – particularly so for BME children.

High BME child poverty levels persist (and look to be rising) despite various policy commitments, including within the Race Equality Framework for Scotland 2016-30 and the inclusion of minority ethnic families as a ‘priority group’ within Scottish Child Poverty strategies. However, the implementation of such policies is not always clearly visible. Similar patterns, where racial poverty inequalities are acknowledged and actions set but not implemented, can be seen throughout the period since devolution.

Child poverty results directly from household poverty, which in turn results from individual poverty. CRER’s research into poverty, ethnicity and the impact of Covid-19 in Scotland has shown that:

• There are indications that relative poverty levels may be rising for BME families, particularly within the Asian or Asian British communities

• Across all child poverty measures, rates of poverty for children in minority ethnic families have risen in recent years, and they appear to be the only one of the child poverty priority groups for whom poverty is still rising

• BME people continue to be overrepresented in low paid sectors with little chance of career progression

• Unemployment rates are higher amongst minority ethnic people, with an employment gap of 16.4% and more severe gaps for BME women and young people

• BME women continue to face structural and practical barriers in accessing and navigating the labour market, including racist and sexist attitudes and discrimination

• BME graduates in Scotland are consistently less likely than white graduates to enter full time employment and are up to three times more likely to be unemployed

• Minority ethnic groups are particularly likely to experience housing costs induced poverty

• There are indications that BME homelessness may be becoming a significant problem

These findings demonstrate the need for urgent, targeted action on child poverty in BME communities. However, there remain significant data gaps on poverty and ethnicity in Scotland. Until we have a better evidence base to allow us to understand the nature, causes and consequences of poverty amongst BME communities in Scotland, we will be unlikely to effectively address that poverty.

An immediate priority for the Scottish Government should be to act on the persistent lack of such data. Indeed, one of the main findings from the Scottish Government’s own research has been that understanding what is driving the higher risk of child poverty among minority ethnic families is challenging due to a lack of data availability.

One critical area where there is a lack of data is around social security and BME people in Scotland. The Scottish Government has previously stated that minority ethnic groups have a higher reliance on benefit income than other households in Scotland. However, there is a lack of comprehensive data on how ethnicity interacts with income from social security in Scotland. Furthermore, the impact of Universal Credit on BME groups in Scotland is currently unknown – research could be commissioned in this area.

In addition, detailed ethnicity breakdowns of poverty rates are relatively rare; for example the main poverty statistics used categorise as ‘White – British’, ‘White – Other’, ‘Asian or Asian British’ or 'Mixed, Black, or Black British or Other' (as below). The impact of this is that differential risks of poverty within such groups is obscured. This means that specific groups facing the largest risk of poverty are effectively rendered invisible in official narratives. Detailed ethnicity breakdowns of poverty rates should be published and monitored.

Source: Scottish Government

There are many other areas where there is either no data, the evidence that does exist is out-of-date or data availability is worsening. Levels of persistent poverty amongst BME families are currently unknown. Currently only five out of a possible 15 Child Poverty Framework indicators have ethnicity data. Of note, the Scottish Government recently changed who they included in their measurement of poverty within the minority ethnic families priority group recently - it previously included Black, Asian, mixed/multiple ethnicities and ‘other’ ethnic households but now also includes households from a white-other background in the generic ‘minority ethnic’ category. This change means that:

• Statistics for BME child poverty rates are no longer available; this is despite higher poverty risk and the known connections between racism, discrimination and poverty

• It is no longer possible to look at trend data for BME child poverty levels

• The data will now potentially be wrongly interpreted as demonstrating an (artificial) decrease in poverty levels for BME children, as poverty levels within white minority groups are generally lower than for BME groups; this may skew priorities for tackling poverty

Actions within the Child Poverty Delivery Plan on a lack of data and evidence in the above areas would result in more effective policies to target poverty in BME groups.

Another area where action could be crucial for BME poverty levels is housing - CRER research has highlighted serious inequalities in BME people’s experiences of housing in Scotland. Amongst other issues, BME people are more likely to privately rent their home, with obvious implications for poverty levels. One of the key steps that could be taken to improve poverty levels within minority ethnic families’ is to increase access to social housing. This could be done by setting appropriate local targets on access to social housing for minority ethnic communities.

Actions at local level have the potential to be a positive force for BME poverty levels, partially due to the uneven geographical share of BME people in Scotland. For example, one third of the population of minority ethnic people in Scotland live in Glasgow and the area is becoming more ethnically diverse; in 2020, 24% of Glasgow school pupils were BME, a seven-percentage point rise since 2012 (17%).

The current need for Local Child Poverty Action Plans is an important acknowledgement of the critical role that local level organisations can have in tackling child poverty. However, this is an area where there is still room for improvement - an area of concern is the coverage of BME families in local anti-poverty strategies. There may need to be greater emphasis in the new national delivery plan of the need for the inclusion of and appropriate actions for all priority family types in local plans.*

Actions to target child poverty must reflect the particular barriers faced by minority ethnic individuals. The areas covered here would be a start, however, there is action needed in many cross-cutting policy areas to lower BME child poverty rates. Another crucial area will be tackling structural racism in the employment sphere, with particular attention to BME women and young people. Higher poverty levels for BME families are not inevitable and we should not consider the interim or final child poverty targets as met if BME families are left behind. The next Child Poverty Delivery Plan must thoroughly consider the role of race and ethnicity, with ambitious actions to match which specifically focus on minority ethnic communities.

*There is already a requirement that local authorities describe in their local child poverty action reports any measures taken in relation to children living in households whose income is adversely affected because a member of the household has one or more protected characteristics. However, CRER investigation has found that there is often very little coverage of BME families in local reports.