Scottish cities

Child poverty in Scottish Cities

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By this measure, around 32% of children in Glasgow were living in poverty in 2019/20. This is the highest rate among Scotland’s major cities. Although child poverty fell slightly 2017/18 and 2018/19, it rose in each of the cities between 2018/19 and 2019/20, and had increased in each city over the 6 years between 2014/15 and 2019/20. In Glasgow, it was 5.1 percentage points higher in 2019/20 than it was in 2014/15.  

Note

The data for this graph come from End Child Poverty. Households are defined as living in poverty if their income is less than 60% of the UK median income. The methods of estimation have recently been updated, further detail can be found on the website.

These figures refer to children from ages 0-16 and to families living in poverty after housing costs are taken into account. 

Other measures of child poverty

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Poverty statistics often only include households with incomes below a poverty threshold (usually 60% of middle incomes). Recently the Scottish Government has published figures that consider other resources as well as income.

These measures are based on experimental statistics. These new experimental measures take into account resources as well as income. The measures report on children in families that cannot afford basic necessities (they live in material deprivation) as well as having a low income (70% of middle incomes).

This produces a slightly different picture of child poverty across the Scottish cities. The Glasgow figure (25%) is higher than those of Edinburgh (10%) and Aberdeen (20%), but lower than that of Dundee (30%). There may be some degree of measurement uncertainty, more information on this can be found on page 7 of the Scottish Government report.