Child Poverty in Australia 2024: The lifelong impacts of financial deprivation and poor-quality housing on child development

Our children are the future of our nation. An Australia with a bright future is one in which all children have what they need to grow and thrive.

As research tells us more about the critical role of early development in creating outcomes through the life course, it becomes increasingly clear that poverty diminishes those life-long opportunities.

Rates of child poverty have risen sharply post COVID, with 823,000 children (or 14.5 per cent) living under a standard (50 per cent) poverty line in 2022.

An additional 102,000 children fell below the poverty line between 2021 and 2022, while the evidence of rising living costs and falling household incomes suggest this number will have grown even further through 2023 and into 2024.

Projecting child poverty rates forward, based on the impact of rising rental costs over the past two years, Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre research estimates the child poverty rate in WA to increase from 11.8 per cent in 2022 to 15.2 per cent in 2024.

This will put nearly 21,000 more children into poverty in WA, including 13,600 more children in single parent families, and 7,000 in couple families. Children living in single parent households are at the greatest risk of poverty, with one in three single parent families living below a standard (50 per cent) poverty line, and over one in ten living in extreme poverty (below a 30 per cent poverty line).

The proportion of single parent families has also risen 11 percent over the last decade. While their risk of poverty is comparatively less for children living in couple households, there are three times as many of them, meaning that 456,000 of those children live below a standard poverty line – hence any policy measures to eliminate child poverty need to reach across household types.