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The childhood challenges of the 21st century

Mental health Pastoral issues
The latest findings of the Millennium Cohort Study, which is following the lives of children born at the turn of the century, reveal the challenges of modern childhood, including poverty, obesity and fractured families. Despite this, the study finds that children are happy with life, family and schooling

More than half of children born at the turn of the century in the UK have experienced poverty at some point during their first 11 years.

Furthermore, one in six of the around 13,300 children being followed by the Millennium Cohort Study have been brought up in "persistently poor families".

The Millennium Cohort Study is following children born in the UK between September 2000 and January 2002.

Notably, the research – by the Institute of Education (IoE) in London – found that 30 per cent of children who are being brought up by a single parent were living in persistent poverty. So to were 26 per cent of those being brought up by a disabled parent.

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