Välfärd, inte för alla – 2011

Rädda Barnen has been publishing reports on child porverty in Sweden since 2002, calling for a national action plan to combat the growing incidence of child poverty. This report for 2011, written by Tapio Salonen, Professor at the Lund and Växjö universities in Sweden, once again addresses the growing problem of child poverty in Sweden today, with the number of poor families increasing from 8-9 percent a decade ago to 15 percent by 2009. Despite the fact that Sweden enjoys a strong economy and a low level of public debt, there still are approximately 220,000 children living in poverty in Sweden today, roughly representing 11,5 percent of all children. One of the reasons could be attributed to the current family policy measures that no longer seem to be able to smooth out the widening gap between high- and low-income families. Special focus is given to children from single parent households holding lower educational expectations.