Ethnicity and inequality: British children’s experience of means-tested benefits

This article explores ethnic group differences in the severity of child poverty in Britain. Using administrative data it looks at benefit receipt of families with children over a period of a year and a half. Building on existing work on 'welfare dynamics', but taking the child as the unit of analysis it explores both mobility in benefit receipt and severity of poverty among children supported by benefits. Severity is viewed as a function both of benefit dependency and the extent to which benefits fall short of needs; and in ascertaining income-to-needs shortfalls external measures against which to assess benefit adequacy are introduced. The article investigates differences in benefit mobility and in severity of poverty by ethnic group, and demonstrates that differences in family patterns can result in extreme cumulative disadvantage for British children of Bangladeshi and Pakistani ethnicity.