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It's the kids that suffer’: exploring how the UK's benefit cap and two-child limit harm children

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  • Andersen, Kate
  • Redman, Jamie
  • Stewart, Kitty
  • Patrick, Ruth

Abstract

The benefit cap and the two-child limit reduce entitlement for households claiming means-tested benefits and disproportionately affect households with dependent children. This article explores the harms the policies are doing to children through drawing upon data collected from interviews with parents affected by the benefit cap and the two-child limit. To investigate the impacts of these policies we draw on the Investment Model and the Family Stress Model, models principally developed by quantitative scholars seeking to understand how economic disadvantage adversely affects children over the longer-term. While there has been frequent quantitative analysis of these models, there has been very little qualitative engagement with them: this article directly addresses this gap in the literature. We show that the benefit cap and the two-child limit cause multiple and severe overlapping harms to children, principally by exacerbating and deepening financial economic disadvantage. Our research evidence illuminates causal processes underpinning both the Investment Model and the Family Stress Model, but also reveals additional harms that are not foregrounded by either model. We conclude by calling for the removal of both policies as a vital first step in reducing child poverty, and further reflect on the need for greater recognition of the harm child poverty does to experiences of childhood; as well as to their future selves.

Suggested Citation

  • Andersen, Kate & Redman, Jamie & Stewart, Kitty & Patrick, Ruth, 2025. "It's the kids that suffer’: exploring how the UK's benefit cap and two-child limit harm children," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123570, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:123570
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/123570/
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kerris Cooper & Kitty Stewart, 2021. "Does Household Income Affect children’s Outcomes? A Systematic Review of the Evidence," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 14(3), pages 981-1005, June.
    2. Mara Violato & Stavros Petrou & Ron Gray & Maggie Redshaw, 2011. "Family income and child cognitive and behavioural development in the United Kingdom: does money matter?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(10), pages 1201-1225, October.
    3. Kevin Milligan & Mark Stabile, 2011. "Do Child Tax Benefits Affect the Well-Being of Children? Evidence from Canadian Child Benefit Expansions," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 175-205, August.
    4. Kiernan, Kathleen E. & Huerta, Maria Carmen, 2008. "Economic deprivation, maternal depression, parenting and children's cognitive and emotional development in early childhood," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 43720, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Kerris Cooper & John Hills, 2021. "The Conservative Governments’ Record on Social Security: Policies, Spending and Outcomes, May 2015 to pre-COVID 2020," CASE - Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Research Papers 10, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    6. Gregg, Paul & Waldfogel, Jane & Washbrook, Elizabeth, 2006. "Family expenditures post-welfare reform in the UK: Are low-income families starting to catch up?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(6), pages 721-746, December.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    benefit cap; child poverty; Family Stress Model; Investment Model; two-child limit;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - General

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