Social Justice and Child Poverty

In this book, child poverty is investigated from a philosophical social justice perspective, primarily in the context of modern welfare states. Graf and Schweiger argue that child poverty has a strong normative component and that it is therefore essentially connected to ethical questions. In chapter 1, Graf and Schweiger extend the capability approach so that it can be applied as a normative background theory for criticizing child poverty in affluent societies. They present a dynamic understanding of functionings and capabilities, since childhood is a phase of development, and argue that an initial focus on achieved functionings seems advisable. Furthermore, they tackle the issue of selecting relevant functionings and capabilities for children. When it comes to the most adequate distributional rule, the authors go for a sufficiency principle, adapting it, however, to the context of modern welfare states. The chapter is concluded by claiming that children are entitled to a set of functionings, and as they grow older, capabilities, that are important for their well-being and well-becoming. Chapter 2 investigates how child poverty affects certain important functionings and capabilities related to both the well-being and well-becoming of children. The authors focus particularly on mental and physical health, education and social inclusion, developing their argument in close dialogue with the results of empirical research. The finding that there is overwhelming evidence that child poverty has detrimental effects on all of them leads to the conclusion that it has to be understood as a corrosive disadvantage. It negatively affects more than one important functioning or capability, both horizontally and temporally: child poverty is corrosive during childhood and it is corrosive throughout the whole future life course, endangering the well-being in adulthood. In Chapter 3 Graf and Schweiger develop a theory of moral responsibilities for the issue of child poverty, advancing a suggestion of Iris Young as presented it in her book Responsibilities for Justice. They present five grounds relevant for the attribution of responsibilities (causation, power, privilege, interest, and closeness distinguish eight potential groups of agents and give a first ranking of the weight of their responsibilities. Then, two highly influential agents are examined in depths: the family and the state. The authors argue that families in poverty are important agents of justice, but that their responsibilities are limited due to their lack of power and real freedoms. The chapter concludes by stressing the high responsibilities of the state to support the child and her family. In Chapter 4 Graf and Schweiger sketch how their critical theory of child poverty, which was developed primarily for modern welfare states, can be extended to the global level. They defend the view that it is important for a concept of global justice to aim for relatively high thresholds in the most important functionings (and capabilities, if applicable) for children, independent from where they happen to be born, making the level of well-being and well-becoming that is currently achieved by most children in affluent societies the right normative goal for all. In addition, the authors briefly address the issue of responsibilities for global child poverty which in some aspects has to be framed differently than it is the case for modern welfare states.