Child Poverty in Sweden (with a brief note on situation of children in Nepal)

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to get an in-depth knowledge about the implications of child poverty on overall child development. This study aims to co-relate between child development and social challenges of the poor children in Sweden with a brief mention about the same around the world and in Nepal - where I came from. This paper also establishes that holistic development of a child is influenced by the child’s school and home environment, child behaviour, social network and economic status. Main questions that this study explored are:  What is the cause of child poverty in Sweden?  What are the main social challenges in the lives of poor children?  What are the effects of poverty on children's physical, mental, educational, skill, personal and social-emotional development?  How can the effects of child poverty in Sweden be improved from a social worker perspective? The study is based on interview from seven respondents (six social workers and one school nurse) from different municipalities in Gothenburg and a report from Save the Children, as well other child poverty related reports. The study employs qualitative methods and interviews for the collection of empirical data. This report concludes that both a child’s biology and his environment have profound impact in his/her change and growth. Besides, children's development is affected by psychosocial and biological factors and also by genetic inheritance. However, poverty and its attendant problems further deteriorates the situation. It was also apparent that children from foreign parents and foreign-single parents are more vulnerable to child poverty. The situation is even worse for children without legal documents who are devoid of even the basic rights (food, shelter, clothes, etc.) The situation of children in poverty in a welfare-oriented country like Sweden (where the poverty rate is very low compared to other developed countries), as presented in this document, can be used as a metric for approximating the situation of children in poverty in less-developed countries, to some degree. The study also recomended some potential improvments to improve child poverty, such as amedments in child welfare funds, create employments oppurtunities for unemployed parents, provide rights to identity for undocumented children, revision of integration policy and revision of state welfare sums. Though, the findings are not generalizable, I feel that a wider study ought to be conducted at a more advanced and higher level, covering social workers from diverse geographic regions of Sweden in order to formulate a generalized framework to address child poverty in Sweden.