Barnfattigdomen i Sverige: Sammanfattning av Barns ekonomiska utsatthet i Sverige. Rädda Barnens årsrapport 2012

This new report summarizes the findings of Save the Children Sweden’s Annual Report on Child Poverty 2012. It shows that 220,000 children were living in poverty in Sweden in 2008, and the figure is increasing. The child poverty rate has risen in 282 of 290 local government entities and between 2008 and 2009, 28,000 more children were added to the poverty population – an estimated total of 248,000 children lived in poverty in Sweden in 2009. There are noticeable inequalities in childhood conditions between children with Swedish and foreign backgrounds. Children with foreign backgrounds are more exposed and are five times more likely to live in poor households compared to children with a Swedish background. Among children in single-parent families, the poverty rate was more than three times higher than for those in families with two parents. More than half of all children with a single parent of immigrant background lived in poverty. The incidence of child poverty varies substantially between Swedish municipalities – from 3,8 percent in Täby, a wealthy Stockholm suburb, to 33,5 in Malmö. Child poverty is defined on an index combining two factors – low levels of relative income or living with income support (a guaranteed minimum level established by the Swedish Parliament in 1998). Save the Children has aimed to raise awareness of child poverty in Sweden since releasing its first report on the issue in 2002 and calls for a national action plan to combat the growing incidence of child poverty.