The government formed a Child Poverty Taskforce in August 2024 to develop a child poverty strategy ‘to reduce and alleviate child poverty’ (PDF). The strategy is due to be announced in spring 2025. This Insight provides the latest data, published on 27 March 2025, on which children are most likely to be in poverty.
There are a number of ways to define child poverty, outlined in the Library briefing Poverty in the UK: statistics. This Insight uses the measure ‘relative child poverty after housing costs’ based on disposable household income after housing costs are taken into account. A child is in relative poverty if they live in a household with income less than 60% of median income in the same year.
31% of children were in relative child poverty after housing costs in 2023/24
Relative child poverty after housing costs has been between 27% and 31% since 2001/02, according to data from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). It was 31% in 2023/24. The UK child poverty rate since 1994/95 is shown in the chart below.
Some children are more likely to be in poverty than others
Child poverty varies widely by ethnic group
In the three-year period 2021/22 to 2023/24, child poverty rates were highest among Bangladeshi (65%) and Pakistani (59%) ethnic groups and lowest among White (24%) and Indian (30%) ethnic groups. This is shown in the chart below.
Source: DWP, Households Below Average Income, Table 4.3db
In the DWP’s data, the ethnic group of the household is determined by the ‘household reference person’. This is usually the person in whose name the accommodation is owned or rented, or the person in the household with the highest income.
Child poverty rates are higher in the West Midlands and London
Child poverty rates were highest in the West Midlands (36%) and London (35%) in the three year period 2021/22 to 2023/24, as shown in the chart below. The high child poverty rate in London reflects high housing costs. When poverty is measured before housing costs, London has one of the lowest rates of child poverty.
The Library’s child poverty dashboard provides child poverty rates at a constituency level.
Family size and type affect child poverty rates
Children in families with three or more children had a much higher poverty rate (44%) than children in families with one (21%) or two children (25%) in 2023/24. This partly reflects the effect of the two-child limit on Universal Credit. The poverty rate among households with three or more children has increased since the two-child limit was introduced. The Library briefing The impact of the two-child limit in Universal Credit provides more detail on the two-child limit.
Families with young children also had higher rates of child poverty.
These figures are shown in the charts below.
Child poverty rates are higher in families where nobody is in work
The employment status of adults in a household has a big impact on child poverty. In 2023/24, 65% of children in ‘workless households’ (households where nobody works) were in poverty, compared with 17% in households with all adults in work. This is shown in the chart below on the left.
Children with single parents are also more likely to be in poverty, as shown in the chart above on the right. This is mostly due to single parents finding it difficult to work full time.
The chart below shows that child poverty for children with a single parent who is in full-time work (19%) is lower than the UK average (31%), while children with no parents in work still have the highest poverty rates.
Children with a disabled family member are more likely to be in poverty
33% of children with a disabled family member were in relative poverty after housing costs in 2023/24, compared with 29% of children with no disabled family members.
Most of this difference is because disabled people and parents of disabled children find it more difficult to work. Children with a disabled family member in a household with at least one adult in work have a lower poverty rate (26%) than the UK average (31%). Interestingly, among children in families with no adults in work, children with a disabled family member have a lower poverty rate. This may be due to benefits received by disabled people. These trends are shown in the charts below.
These figures do not take into account the extra costs associated with being disabled: if these costs were taken into account, poverty rates for families where someone is disabled would be higher. Section 9.1 of the Library briefing Poverty in the UK: statistics provides more detail.
About the author: Brigid Francis-Devine is a researcher at the House of Commons Library specialising in poverty.
Photo by Krzysztof Kowalik, on Unsplash