IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/123570.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • 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, 2024. "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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/123570/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mari, Gabriele & Keizer, Renske, 2020. "Families of Austerity: Welfare Cuts and Family Stress in Britain," SocArXiv vdej8, Center for Open Science.
    2. Mari, Gabriele, 2024. "Pandemic Income Support Programs and Adolescent Mental Health in the UK, Ireland and Australia," SocArXiv pzr4k, Center for Open Science.
    3. Cooper, Kerris & Stewart, Kitty, 2020. "Does household income affect children’s outcomes? A systematic review of the evidence," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107029, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Cooper, Kerris & Stewart, Kitty, 2017. "Does Money Affect Children’s Outcomes? An update," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103494, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Stefani Milovanska-Farrington, 2022. "The effect of child benefits on financial difficulties and spending habits: evidence from Poland’s Family 500 + program," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 719-739, October.
    6. González, Libertad & Trommlerová, Sofia, 2022. "Cash transfers before pregnancy and infant health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    7. Mari, Gabriele, 2023. "Less for more? Cuts to child benefits, family adjustments, and long-run child outcomes in larger families," SocArXiv e3n82, Center for Open Science.
    8. 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.
    9. Hema Shah & Lisa A. Gennetian, 2024. "Unconditional cash transfers for families with children in the U.S.: a scoping review," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 415-450, June.
    10. Gabriele Mari, 2024. "Less for more? Cuts to child benefits, family adjustments, and long-run child outcomes in larger families," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 1-27, June.
    11. Kerris Cooper & Kitty Stewart, 2017. "Does Money Affect Children's Outcomes? An update," CASE Papers /203, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    12. Shamrova, Daria & Lampe, Joana, 2020. "Understanding patterns of child material deprivation in five regions of the world: A children’s rights perspective," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    13. Libertad González & Sofia Trommlerová, 2021. "Prenatal Transfers and Infant Health: Evidence from Spain," Working Papers 1261, Barcelona School of Economics.
    14. Libertad González Luna & Sofia Trommlerová, 2021. "Prenatal transfers and infant health: Evidence from Spain," Economics Working Papers 1783, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    15. Amelia Maika & Murthy N Mittinty & Sally Brinkman & Sam Harper & Elan Satriawan & John W Lynch, 2013. "Changes in Socioeconomic Inequality in Indonesian Children’s Cognitive Function from 2000 to 2007: A Decomposition Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-9, October.
    16. Elizabeth M. Caucutt & Lance Lochner & Youngmin Park, 2017. "Correlation, Consumption, Confusion, or Constraints: Why Do Poor Children Perform so Poorly?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(1), pages 102-147, January.
    17. Andrea M. Mühlenweg & Franz G. Westermaier & Brant Morefield, 2016. "Parental health and child behavior: evidence from parental health shocks," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 577-598, September.
    18. Milovanska-Farrington, Stefani, 2019. "The effect of family welfare support on the likelihood of having another child and parents’ labor supply," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 243-263.
    19. Menta, Giorgia & Lepinteur, Anthony & Clark, Andrew E. & Ghislandi, Simone & D'Ambrosio, Conchita, 2023. "Maternal genetic risk for depression and child human capital," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    20. Elizabeth Washbrook & Paul Gregg & Carol Propper, 2014. "A decomposition analysis of the relationship between parental income and multiple child outcomes," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 177(4), pages 757-782, October.

    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

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:123570. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.