June 2001
What is Best For Children?
by Chris Sarlo
All of us want our children to be healthy, happy, and well-adjusted. We want them to be articulate, well-mannered, and eager to take on increasing responsibilities as they move towards adulthood. What can be done to improve the odds that we obtain these desirable outcomes for children? What is best for children?
My reading of the relevant literature persuades me that most of the things that are good for children are in the power of their parents to effect. This is good news. The way children end up is not a random process driven by luck. It is, largely, the outcome of actions, attitudes, and choices made by their parents (biological or otherwise) as well as, to a lesser extent, some policies which can either foster or impede the healthy development of children.
Broadly speaking, children need to have a healthy start in life to enhance their physical well-being, and they need the love, security, and understanding of their parents to help ensure their emotional well-being.
Let me begin with health. It is fair to say that the vast majority of children in Canada do not start their lives with any significant disease or disability. While there are random risks of them contracting serious illness or having a serious accident leading to disability, parental choices can substantially reduce those risks. Similarly, parental decisions and behaviour have a major impact on the probability of a range of less serious childhood illnesses and accidents. For example, parents can promote an atmosphere of safety for children by being good role models, by instilling values and setting limits for children, by emphasizing the importance of diet, exercise, and healthy habits, and by taking seriously the supervision of younger children. There are never any guarantees in life, but the choices and actions of parents are crucial to reducing risks to children's health.
But what about poor children (or, more precisely, the children of poor parents)? Aren't their prospects for a healthy and happy development automatically decreased? Aren't they at a serious disadvantage when it comes to important health, education, and labour market outcomes?
Real poverty does have the potential to reduce children's life chances. However—and this is also good news—there is very little "real" poverty in Canada. Very few children grow up in an atmosphere of persistent deprivation of the basic necessities. And if children in Canada are hungry, it is generally not due to inadequate income.
My own research is relevant here. I have developed a "basic needs" poverty measure specifically to help answer questions about the magnitude of real deprivation in this country. In various books, articles and reports published by The Fraser Institute, I have argued that prevailing measures, particularly Statistics Canada's Low-Income Cut-Offs, are not useful for examining poverty, as it is commonly understood. The absence of a measure of real deprivation has fundamentally hampered policy debate in Canada to the point where there is apparently considerable confusion about the concepts of poverty, inequality, and welfare.
A basic needs poverty measure is simply the sum of the costs of a list of basic necessities required for physical well-being on a sustained basis. It is not a subsistence level, nor is it a middle class standard of living. Using this threshold, which varies by family size and by community, I have estimated that the child poverty rate in Canada is about 10 percent. This amounts to about 700,000 children. However, this estimate uses income as an indicator of economic well-being. There are a whole variety of problems with income, the net effect of which is to overstate the extent of poverty. Using an alternative indicator, such as consumption, reduces the estimate of child poverty closer to the range of 5 percent. This value is supported by a recent Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) study of "food security" which found hunger in only about 5 percent of Canadian families with children (1998). While any amount of child hunger is unacceptable, these estimates are a stunning contrast to the repeated claims from the social welfare community that the child poverty and child hunger situation is a "crisis."
When the income of social assistance recipients is compared with the basic needs poverty measure, we find that in almost all cases of families with children, incomes exceed the poverty line. In other words, children living in families on welfare are not poor. There is no reason for them to be hungry or ill-housed. There is no reason for them to have to resort to food banks or emergency relief. That some do suggests that there is a problem with parenting.
The issue of responsibility for child hunger and poverty has typically been avoided or, more likely, expressed in convoluted psycho-babble that ends up blaming "society" for the discomfort of particular children. If you point to the obvious failings of the parents of those particular children, you are accused of "blaming the victim." That is the trump card that usually silences the critics. The weakness of this familiar social welfare position is that it is inconsistent with the research on parenting, it is inconsistent with society's expectations of parents (embedded in the legal system), and it is insulting to the poor.
Research on parenting has advanced to the point where we have good information on "best practices" for parents. HRDC is currently promoting The Power of Positive Parenting based on the available research. However, if parents can make good choices, they can also make bad choices. And regrettably, they sometimes do. We have always held parents responsible for abuse and neglect they impose on their own children. Society's expectations of parents are part of our legal framework. Finally, the idea that a poor person is automatically a "victim" who is not fully responsible for his actions and who is incapable of speaking for himself is inaccurate and insulting.
The important point here is that poverty does not absolve people from behaving in civilized and rational manners. We have to stop making excuses for anti-social and irresponsible behaviour, especially when it adversely affects children.
A growing body of research reveals how little material things matter when it comes to children's outcomes. Susan Mayer, a public policy professor at the University of Chicago, has recently summarized much of that literature. She found that parental income is not as important to children's outcomes as many social scientists had previously thought. This is because, she states, "parental characteristics such as skills, diligence, honesty, good health and reliability also improve children's life chances. Children of parents with these attributes do well even when their parents do not have much income" (Mayer, p. 2). She further makes the point that the non-material considerations dominate once we go above the poverty threshold: "Once basic material needs are met, factors other than income become increasingly important to how children fare" (Mayer, p. 148).
If good parents are more important for children's outcomes than material things, then it might follow that two good parents are better than one good parent. There is considerable evidence to support this. The recent work of Judith Wallerstein based on long term consequences of divorce shows that adult children of divorced parents had more trouble establishing intimate relationships, were less likely to go to college, and were more likely to get into trouble with drugs and alcohol. Despite the heroic efforts of many single parents to bring up happy, successful children, the two-parent family is best for children.
The state has a role to play in this regard. At the very least, the state should be neutral on the matter of intact families. Given the overwhelming evidence about family breakdown and implications for children, government programs and policies should never encourage divorce or single parenthood. And when divorce occurs, they should not discourage the equal participation of both parents in the lives of their children. Concern that provincial family laws and the federal Divorce Act were not working well for children prompted the federal government to commission a Senate-Commons committee to study and report on the matter. In December 1998, the committee presented its report. Entitled For the Sake of the Children, it recommends, among other things, a greater voice for children of divorced parents and a new concept— "shared" parenting. The report argues that the current "custodial parent" model is divisive and harmful to children. Certain interest groups, intent on preserving the status quo, have effectively prevented the implementation of these proposals.
The things that children need to develop into healthy, happy, and productive adults, can be categorized into two groups of needs: physical and emotional. Children's physical needs must be provided by their parents. Parents are responsible, and ultimately accountable, for their children's well-being. It is important to emphasize, however, that Canada does have a last resort program that will cover the basic needs of families with children if no other resources are available. But the provision of physical needs extends beyond the income needed to purchase necessities to the creation of an "atmosphere of safety" within the home. It is not in the best interests of children to allow irresponsible parents to hide behind the "don't blame the victim" wall. Children's emotional needs are largely satisfied within the home; however, the relevant policy framework (including family law and the Divorce Act) can have an important, indirect influence.
References
Human Resources Development Canada, Applied Research Branch (1998). The Power of Positive Parenting. Vol. 4, no. 1. (Winter-Spring) Digital document: http://www.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/menu/youth_child.shtml
Mayer, Susan E. (1997). What Money Can't Buy: Family Income and Children's Life Chances. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Report of the Special Joint Committee on Child Custody and Access (1998). For the Sake of the Children. Ottawa: Parliament of Canada (December) Digital document: http://www.parl.gc.ca/InfoComDoc/36/1/SJCA/Studies/Repo rts/sjcarp02-e.htm
Chris Sarlo teaches economics at Nipissing University in North Bay, ON. He is the author of Poverty in Canada, published by The Fraser Institute.
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