Tomorrow’s child

1. Tomorrow’s child Brian Harvey, Barnardos, Tallaght, 7th May 2009 brharvey@iol.ie

2. Purpose of Tomorrow’s child • Look at social trends affecting children • Note: little trend data until recently • What does this mean for next 10-15 years? • Not a policy report but does look at trends in policy, political environment • Unusually rapidly changing background 2008 Method Study of trends data Interviews with key informants

3. A word of caution about prediction • There are the known knowns and the unknown knowns. And then there are the known unknowns. And then there are the unknown unknowns. • Donald Rumsfeld

4. Demographic trends • Rapid population growth, driven by in-migration, may now change. • Numbers of children falling since 1981, but with a recovery turn of the century • Families are smaller • Childbirth concentrated on early to mid 30s. Parents are older now. • Traditional family remains the norm • Family patterns remarkably stable. Marriage more popular than ever.

5. Spatial, settlement trends • Significant changes in settlement patterns • Shift of population to eastern arc • Distinct growth areas e.g. TAM, Dublin-Belfast • Children living in new homes in low-density development • Growth of apartment living, not yet for children • Car as dominant mode for children’s living patterns (school, socializing, sport etc) • Arrival of the new communities, with high skill levels and at age of family formation. • Migration peak 2007, some migrants returned. Asylum peaked 2002, bottomed out.

6. Demography: Tomorrow’s child • Continued population growth • Live in new homes in drift to the east • Some may grow up in apartments • Environmental issues more important • No, one, even two siblings, not more • Will grow up in a stable family • Parents will both work for their lifetime • Part of a more diverse population. Migrant and intermarried families. Visibility, vulnerability of Africans.

7. Social trends (1) • A gradually falling but high rate of child poverty, always above the adult rate • Increasing, but still low and costly level of early childhood education and care • Persistence of inequalities, under-performance in education • Girls increasingly outperform boys • Schoolchildren increasingly work • Children go to school by car

8. Social trends (2) • Stable crime, youth crime rates • Relatively low rates of illegal drug use • Increasing securitization by government • Persistence of vulnerability for some children at extreme risk: Travellers, homeless, poor housing • Children with disability live longer, but at risk of poverty

9. Social trends: Tomorrow’s child • More likely to get early childhood education and care, in multiple settings • If from disadvantaged group or area, will be poor • If Traveller child, a lifetime of adversity, hardship • Will study longer, to 21+ • At school, more take grinds • Will grow up in a safe environment • Will live in a new home with more personal space • Will be surveilled more

10. Living trends (1) • Positive health, living indicators, especially in new homes, high ‘happiness’ rates • Decline in mental ill-health, except for poor • Improved father/mother sharing in households • Most children have positive experience of school • Curricula have improved, but schools still traditional values, feminization teacher force • Continued attraction of traditional subjects • Science, languages not improving • Children ambitious for careers, mobile • Widening, creative career choices

11. Living trends (2) • One fifth of children with problem health behaviour e.g. obesity, alcohol, smoking • Children high users of new technologies • Have colonized distinct areas (web2) • Follow parental political choices. Religious behaviour moving to continental norm. Few statements of secularization exc. marriage (22%) • Immigrant children highly motivated at school, endure racism, role of teachers • Irish and European sense of identity

12. Living: Tomorrow’s child • Will grow up in a more shared, democratic home • May go to wider range of schools (multi-denominational, gaelscoilleanna) • Will have good and improving health, unless poor • One fifth at risk of health endangerment • Increasingly use new technologies in own space • Formal religious adherence, not behaviour • Schools will be more ethnically diverse • Development of shared identities

13. Policy trends • A low-tax, low-spend model of economic development: we have & will have inadequate services for children • Unusually low rate of social spending cf EU27 • Children’s strategies proposed 1970 • Policies, architecture not set in place until 2000. Concept of children’s rights (constitutional amendment?). • Still serious deficits in services which put children at risk. • Model, scope, scale, cost of early childhood education and care problematical.

14. European background • EU has exercised faint but discernible influence in driving up social standards (e.g. childcare, women, discrimination) • Ireland committed minimally to social values inherent in European project • Flexicurity debate important for shaping children’s life patterns • Ageing of Europe, then Ireland: longer working lives

15. Europe: Tomorrow’s child • Europe will be pre-occupied with old people more than children, Ireland will follow • Work to 70+ • Start thinking pension very early • Flexicurity: many career changes, mobility, change jobs, re-train, re-skill, more self-reliant • Underlying problem of orientation: Berlin or Boston? Social services still informed by English-speaking, Atlantic model.

16. Tomorrow’s child: surprises • No sex or religion, please. We know almost nothing about sexual behaviour, religious belief • How little school has changed. The great non-issue: mixed schooling • Many moral panics about children in areas of illegal drugs, smoking, alcohol, obesity, suicide, crime, ‘the family’, not justified by careful reading of figures, statistics • Most children have remarkably positive indicators, many good sub-trends e.g. healthy eating, exercise • This makes the poverty, hardship, lack of life chances, services for the few (20%) all the more unacceptable

17. Tomorrow’s child: the challenge • Positive indicators dragged down by performance on child poverty, lack of services, educational outcomes, neglect, cost and availability of early childhood education • Re-defining child poverty downward: • Rate in 2006: 23.4% (relative poverty) • Rate in 2008: 7% (consistent poverty) • Rate in 2009: End of independent data

18. Tomorrow’s child in disaster capitalism (Naomi Klein) (1) • Enormous damage from dismantling poverty, equality, childhood infrastructure. Loss of data, knowledge, know-how, legitimacy, champions. • Making ‘problem’ children invisible. • Squeeze on education, welfare budgets (esp. qualification conditions). • HSE cuts yet to come. Child protection? • Government opting for 3-year programme of cuts. Parents will pay more for children’s education from diminished budgets.

19. Tomorrow’s child in disaster capitalism (2) • Expect a rapid rise in child poverty as unemployment reaches 500,000. • Disimprovement in social, health indicators. • No state agency to monitor or defend. • Loss of trust in government, institutions, with unpredictable political outcomes. • Conservative political alternatives. • NGOs: challenge to re-build, re-construct, re-shape, with fresh partners, a new future for Tomorrow’s child. • Thank you for your attention!