CHILD AS AN INVESTMENT



Child as an Investment

Child as an Investment

Abstract

The paper's starting point is an analysis of New Labour's agenda for children in an emergent 'social investment state'. It provides an overview of policies for children, which simultaneously invest in children and regulate them and their parents/mothers. Although children have moved to the heart of social policy, there is some disquiet about the way they are being positioned in this brave new world of social investment. (Scourfield, Drakeford, 2002, 619-40)

Introduction

Investment in children involves improvements to both cash support and services. On the cash side, we have seen: a one-off real increase in the universal child benefit (for the first child only); increased support for children in low income families both in and out of work through a new tax credit scheme and improvements to social assistance payments for children (the latter curiously unsung by Ministers keen not to alienate Middle England); the introduction of statutory educational maintenance allowances to encourage young people from low income families to stay on at school; and a new child trust fund, a form of assets based welfare which has itself been characterized as a key building block of the 'social investment state'. (Andersson, 2005, 171-82)

Children: '100% of our future'

The notion of the 'social investment state' can be understood as both an ideal and an analytical tool. The term was coined by Anthony Giddens as an alternative to the traditional welfare state in order to promote 'investment in human capital wherever possible, rather than direct provision of economic maintenance'. (Scourfield, Drakeford, 2002, 619-40)

Children, and in particular, young children represent the main 'human capital' to which Giddens refers. Children emerged as key figures in New Labour's nascent 'social investment state' early in 1999 when, in his Beveridge Lecture, the Prime Minister pledged the government to eradicate child poverty in two decades and explained that children were the government's 'top priority' because they are '100% of our future'. (Jenkin, McGenniss, 2000)

Although the pledge to end child poverty was made by Tony Blair, the real drive behind the child poverty strategy has come from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had taken up the cause of child poverty when a backbench Member of Parliament. Gordon Brown has developed the theme of investing in Britain's children, and in particular children living in poverty, as investment in the country's future. (Scourfield, Drakeford, 2002, 619-40)

Moreover, he has argued that 'tackling child poverty is the best anti-drugs, anti-crime, anti-deprivation policy for our country'. The 2003 Budget Report went so far as to claim that 'support for today's disadvantaged children will . . . help to ensure a more flexible economy tomorrow'. The strategic significance of children for a state keen to equip its citizens to respond and adapt to global economic change so as to enhance competitiveness in the knowledge economy is underlined by a Strategic Audit drawn up by the government's Strategy Unit. It states that the first 'strategic priority' is to be 'ready for the ...