A serious national strategy to reduce child poverty must address problems such as low wages and insecure employment, high jobless rates, inadequate social assistance, disintegrating social services, and inadequate child care and housing. The number of poor children living in Canada has increased by 428,000 since 1989. Canada has the second highest child poverty rate when compared against 17 other industrialized nations around the world, second only to the United States. Aboriginal children are at higher risk of living in poverty than non-Aboriginal children. A child under 18 is more likely to be poor in this country than an adult Canadian.
Children are poor because their parents are poor.
One of the main reasons for poverty among parents is a lack of well-paying, stable jobs. As a result, children are extremely vulnerable to the impacts of high unemployment and an unstable labour market. In particular, children living in lone-parent families and families headed by parents under 30 years of age are more likely to live in poverty. Addressing child poverty requires that Canadian families have access to stable employment, appropriate training or post-secondary educational opportunities, and adequate income and social support. This is only a first step.