While 8.2 million children and adolescents live in households with incomes below the poverty line, which is not covered by inflation, More and more middle-class families are joining the demand for public services and financial aid With increasing pressure on those state benefits to keep up with their children’s food, education and health care, according to a new report by Argentine Observatory of Social Debt (ODSA),
“Middle class kids are the new childhood poor,” he said during the presentation of the results. inina tunen coordinator of Child Social Debt Barometer of Odsa in Argentine Catholic University (UCA).
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When food insecurity – Lack of food or going hungry (severe insecurity) due to economic problems in the last 12 months – decreased after the most critical period of the COVID-19 pandemic, It continues to affect more than 30% of people under the age of 17 and with an increase in beneficiaries of middle class schemes Which is proportionate to the loss of income due to the economic crisis.
Shows the trend of a set of objective indicators on the characteristics of childhood life in the country over the past 12 years 62.4% of the middle class population up to the age of 17 is getting some food in canteens, schools or with the help of food cards compared to 36.1% before the pandemic COVID-19, At the upper-middle level, this demand increased from meeting the needs of 21.1% of boys in 2019 to 25.5% last year.
The proportion of middle-class children receiving this aid is already higher than the pre-pandemic value that the ODSA-UCA team obtained for the poorest families and has also increased. In 2019, 51.6% of children under 17 in the most vulnerable households had access to one or more free meals outside the home or with a meal card; Now, it is 77.7%.
Social Security through Money Transfer (Universal Child Allowance or other social schemes) have also grown in the middle class over the past three years. In 2020, 32.6% of children and adolescents from middle socioeconomic status households received this assistance. Last year, coverage reached one in two (50.3%), This proportion is above 65% in poor or very poor households. At the medium-high level, 10.1% of minors receive social benefits.
Following the pandemic, there has also been a displacement of the middle class from state educational institutions and the public health system tuna who is a researcher specializing in child sociology and poverty.
During the presentation of the results at UCA, he mentioned that most of the indicators Living conditions of Argentine children They have been monitoring since 2010 – uncovering “very serious conditions of deprivation important to physical, social and mental development” – in food, health, education, housing, subsistence, parenting, socialization, access to information and child labour. Is.
“We had structural problems that got a floor and were very difficult to modify,” he said in a conversation with Nation, With the health emergency over for the most part, all of them increased significantly. It describes the impact that the pandemic actually had on children, as evidenced by access to education and health. Some very serious indicators, such as child abuse, increased very significantly and in 2021, they have not returned to pre-pandemic levels. They only did so last year in some cases and in others, they didn’t even return to pre-2020 values.
This, according to his opinion, reveals the difficulty that exists to improve the living conditions of children and adolescents in Argentina when the “only large-scale policies” are monetary assistance through social plans.
“We have challenges that require us to think very carefully about how we invest resources,” Tunnen said. So far, we’ve tried the usual: a state that provides education and health, with more and more children attending state schools, public hospitals, and receiving monetary aid. middle class who became the beneficiaries of the security systems, a typical phenomenon of epidemics that not only continued, but also increased. It’s a very difficult macroeconomic context, where There is no reason to think that the country’s ruling class will ever give priority to children Argentina. As a society, it would be good to start making vigorous demands on how to guarantee childhood and adolescence with the minimum aspects of their development with consistent public policies.
The poorest
Of course for the team, The poorest of the population of minors are adolescents: 22% suffer from some degree of severe deprivation. Right to food, housing, health, education, access to information (technology and connectivity) and sanitation. According to the Report on the Status of Children, this proportion is 21 per cent for children under five and 16.7 per cent for children aged six to 12.
According to the researchers, the policies implemented, ranging from financial aid to educational, social security or sports programs, are more targeted at the first years of life or primary school. However, for them adolescence is another window of opportunity to intervene and bridge the gap determined by income, habitat or available resources.
The survey, which already reached more than 60,000 urban households with children between the ages of zero and 17, describes Considering the lack of basic rights, 83.5% of adolescents are poor, compared to 76.4% in the pre-pandemic. By income alone, poverty in that group is 65.6%. Meanwhile, among boys up to four years old, the proportion fell from 61.1% in 2019 to 54.2% last year, and among five- to 12-year-olds it fell from 60% to 51.4% over the same period.
That is, as the authors explain, at the expense of a “sharp increase” in the two state resources. On the one hand, coverage, with AUH and other economic subsidies, increased from 41 to 49.8% of that population in 2019 and 2022. The updating of these amounts lags behind inflation, as explained in Nicolas Garcia Balus Researchers of the Social Debt Barometer of Argentina. On the other hand, free food assistance at school or community kitchens increased from less than 30% of children and adolescents to 59.3% last year.
“Teenagers are not only doing a lot poor knowledge of academic training but they are also away from the health system with problems that were never treated, and thus they are integrating into the world of work,” Tunen explained. In addition, they have difficulties with skills How to have a routine with schedules, hygiene rules, and bonding in a group, which is the result of upbringing and socialization. Many grew up without ever seeing their parents fulfill the work routine. Companies can take technical training, but training in social skills is more difficult because they are very complex processes.”
Child labor with household activities or helping parents with work or other tasks outside the home recovered to a pre-pandemic prevalence of about 15% of boys between the ages of five and 17, although this has increased among adolescents and especially more in interior areas. Country.
