Measuring child poverty: proposed changes will push families into unacceptable hardship

Poverty is a lifestyle choice, according to government rhetoric. And although research suggests otherwise, the government wants to redefine poverty and do so by removing all income and material deprivation measures from the Child Poverty Act. Instead, it proposes to measure it based on workless homes and educational attainment. Gill Main writes many parents in poverty are actually in work, but still live on limited resources in order to provide for their children. Their saving measures include skimping on food and postponing dentist appointments, realities that make it hard to see how the government’s proposals will benefit our society

The consensual approach to child poverty measurement

This CROP brief sets out how the Consensual Approach can be used to measure child poverty in high, middle and low income countries. This brief argues that: • Conventional estimates of poverty relying on minimalist definitions and indicators underplay its extent and nature. • The consensual, or democratic, approach produces valid and reliable indicators with which to estimate poverty and reflect on its multidimensional nature. • The consensual approach has been successfully used to assess child poverty in both high and low income countries. • It offers a unique opportunity to go beyond the “what is” to the “what should be”

The consensual approach to child poverty measurement

This CROP brief sets out how the Consensual Approach can be used to measure child poverty in high, middle and low income countries. This brief argues that: • Conventional estimates of poverty relying on minimalist definitions and indicators underplay its extent and nature. • The consensual, or democratic, approach produces valid and reliable indicators with which to estimate poverty and reflect on its multidimensional nature. • The consensual approach has been successfully used to assess child poverty in both high and low income countries. • It offers a unique opportunity to go beyond the “what is” to the “what should be”

Law 11.947/2009. The National School Food Program Reviseted

The aim of this work is to unveil the importance of the Brazilian National School Food Program towards solving the problems of hunger, malnutrition, food sovereignty, food culture (regional), as well as to assert to the new challenges imposed by covid-19 and the recent attempts to change this policy regulation. The changes provided by the law 11.947/2009 are both in accordance with the Brazilian 1988 Constitution and to the UN Sustainable Development Goals numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. In order to analyze this major public policy, it was used legislative interpretation as well as official data on resources destined to the program. Another method was the revision of the literature regarding this policy in order to perceive its effectiveness. The results show democratic governance decreasing during the last few years, aggravated by the covid-19 crises, the federal government gave a slow response to it, what generated uncertainty both for the states and municipalities and put at risk the program continuity, the food security of many school age population, as well as the producers. Therefore, the program should be seen as a world example of success and must be preserved on national grounds

Effects of chronic exposure to thiamethoxam on larvae of the hoverfly Eristalis tenax (Diptera, Syrphidae)

There is widespread concern over the use of neonicotinoid pesticides in the agro-ecosystem, due in part to their high water solubility which can lead to widespread contamination of non-target areas including standing surface water. Most studies investigating the negative fitness consequences of neonicotinoids have focused on bees, with little research on the impact on other non-target insects. Here we examined the effect of exposure on the aquatic larval stages of the hoverfly Eristalis tenax L. (Diptera: Syrphidae) to a range of concentrations (control, 5, 15, 50, 100 and 500 ppb) of the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam; no published studies have thus far examined the effects of neonicotinoids on hoverflies. Survival was significantly lower when exposed to 500 ppb thiamethoxam, but this concentration exceeds that likely to be found in the field. We observed no effect on survival, development or any latent effects on adult activity budgets resulting from exposure to lower concentrations (up to 100 ppb). Our results suggest that E. tenax exposed as larvae to thiamethoxam are unlikely to be negatively impacted by this neonicotinoid under field conditions

Comparing different models of aftershock rate decay: the role of catalog incompleteness in the first times after main shock

We evaluated the efficiency of various models in describing the time decay of aftershock rate of 47 simple sequences occurred in California (37) from 1933 to 2004 and in Italy (10) from 1976 to 2004. We compared the models by the corrected Akaike Information Criterion (AICc) and the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), both based on the log-likelihood function but also including a penalty term that takes into account the number of independent observations and of free parameters of each model. We compared the performance of different models by varying the starting time Ts and the minimum magnitude threshold Mmin for each sequence. We found that Omori-type models including parameter c are preferable to those not including it, only for short Ts and low Mmin while the latters generally perform better than the formers for Ts longer than a few hours and Mmin larger than the main shock magnitude Mm minus 3 units. This clearly indicates that a value of parameter c different from zero does not represent a general property of aftershock sequences in California and Italy but it is very likely induced in most cases by catalog incompleteness in the first times after the main shock. We also considered other models of aftershock decay proposed in the literature: the Stretched Exponential Law in two forms (including and not including a time shift) and the band Limited Power Law (LPL). We found that such models perform worse than the Modified Omori Model (MOM) and other Omori-type models for the large majority of sequences, although for LPL, the relatively short duration of the analyzed sequences (one year) might also contribute to its poor performance.Comment: 33 pages, 10 figures, 1 tabl

Country-Level Meritocratic Beliefs Moderate the Social Gradient in Adolescent Mental Health: A Multilevel Study in 30 European Countries

Purpose: Adolescents with higher socioeconomic status (SES) report better mental health. The strength of the association—the “social gradient in adolescent mental health”—varies across countries, with stronger associations in countries with greater income inequality. Country-level meritocratic beliefs (beliefs that people get what they deserve) may also strengthen the social gradient in adolescent mental health; higher SES may be more strongly linked to adolescent's perceptions of capability and respectful treatment. Methods: Using data from 11–15 year olds across 30 European countries participating in the 2013/2014 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study (n = 131,101), multilevel regression models with cross-level interactions examined whether country-level meritocratic beliefs moderated the association between two individual-level indicators of SES, family affluence and perceived family wealth, and three indicators of adolescent mental health (life satisfaction, psychosomatic complaints, and aggressive behavior). Results: For family affluence, in some countries, there was a social gradient in adolescent mental health, but in others the social gradient was absent or reversed. For perceived family wealth, there was a social gradient in adolescent life satisfaction and psychosomatic complaints in all countries. Country-level meritocratic beliefs moderated associations between SES and both life satisfaction and psychosomatic complaints: in countries with stronger meritocratic beliefs associations with family affluence strengthened, while associations with perceived family wealth weakened. Conclusions: Country-level meritocratic beliefs moderate the associations between SES and adolescent mental health, with contrasting results for two different SES measures. Further understanding of the mechanisms connecting meritocratic beliefs, SES, and adolescent mental health is warranted