| dc.description.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. | sv |
