The Dynamics of Child Poverty in Australia

This paper provides new information about how family incomes and the state of poverty of Australian households with children changed from year to year in the mid-1990s. The study is based on data from the Survey of Employment and Unemployment Patterns, a longitudinal survey that followed a group of respondents between September 1994 and September 1997. The paper defines poverty according to different thresholds and the child poverty rates that result from these thresholds. The poverty rates were calculated using gross income and are not directly comparable with the usual poverty rates based on disposable income. The paper begins with a description of the extent and pattern of income dynamics among families with children. This is followed by analyses of the family characteristics of children persistently in poverty, as well as children moving into and out of poverty based on four poverty thresholds and using variables on both current and annual income. The study also investigates whether there are differences between the outcomes for all dependent children and young children (those less than 15 years old).