Living a differentiated childhood: children and families' experiences of poverty and material deprivation within the UK's Asylum Support system

Pinter, Ilona (2024) Living a differentiated childhood: children and families' experiences of poverty and material deprivation within the UK's Asylum Support system. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Abstract

Asylum-seekers are excluded from employment and social security while their claim is determined, instead reliant on subsistence payments and accommodation provided through Asylum Support – a system characterised as ‘enforced impoverishment’ (Mayblin, 2019a). Despite evidence of the detrimental effects of child poverty (Cooper & Stewart, 2018), children in asylum-seeking families have received limited attention within either the poverty or asylum literatures. By connecting these areas of scholarship, this study investigates the experiences, material needs and outcomes of children and families receiving Asylum Support. The research comprises an analysis of longitudinal qualitative interviews with young people and parents, and new Home Office data. The findings show that Asylum Support exposes children and young people to a ‘survival-only’ regime, resulting in persistent low-income and severe material deprivation. Families are unable to consistently meet ‘essential living needs’ nor the needs that young people and parents think are important for children’s development, education, integration and social participation. This creates a ‘differentiated childhood’ – separating families from mainstream mechanisms aimed at tackling poverty, leaving young people feeling marginalised, stigmatised, unequal to their peers and excluded from social participation, with grave consequences for their emotional and relational well-being. Employment restrictions targeting adults, nonetheless, affect young people by limiting household resources, damaging parental mental health, and restricting training and employment for young people themselves. Over time, families find constructive ways to adapt to their circumstances but also experience accumulating harm from prolonged poverty, severe deprivation and asylum liminality. While poverty is debilitating for anyone, it is particularly damaging during childhood – a formative period when children gain a sense of self and of their place in the world, alongside important skills. This thesis makes visible children whose experiences have hitherto remained hidden, arguing that children in asylum-seeking families face multiple intersecting disadvantages that result in an intentionally unequal, differentiated childhood.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	© 2024 Ilona Pinter
Uncontrolled Keywords:	child poverty, Asylum Support, families, employment restrictions, material deprivation
Library of Congress subject classification:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration
Sets:	Departments > Social Policy
Supervisor:	Shutes, Isabel and Burchardt, Tania
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4737

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