A. S. Bhalla

Poverty and exclusion in a global world

List of Tables List of Figures Preface Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Defining Exclusion Towards an Analytical and Operational Framework Unemployment, Precarious Jobs and Exclusion Exclusion in Developed Countries Exclusion in Developing Countries Globalization and Exclusion Notes Bibliography Author/Name Index Subject Index

Child Poverty and Well-Being

In January 2008 the European Commission released a report on child poverty and well-being (European Commission, 2008). It reports that there are a substantial number of poor children in the European Union (EU) countries. They are living poorly in the midst of Europe’s wealthy citizens. The situation of these children is worse than that of the general population.’ In some countries, one out of four children are poor. The most vulnerable are the immigrant children living in migrant households (in which at least one parent is born abroad). They suffer from a much higher risk of poverty than others whose parents were born in the host country. The risk for these children ‘is two to five times higher’ (European Commission, 2008, p. 63). This higher risk is often due to joblessness and larger size of households. In some countries, other factors — namely, lower wages and poor working conditions — are more important.

Poverty among immigrant children in Europe

List of Tables List of Figures List of Boxes Preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations PART I: CHILD POVERTY AND WELL-BEING Poverty, Deprivation and Destitution The Notions of Well-being and Ill-being A Justice-as-fairness Approach to Poverty A Capability Approach Childrens Rights and Social Justice PART II: IMMIGRANT CHILD POVERTY IN EUROPE Adult Immigrants and Their Children in Europe Poverty Incidence Among Immigrants and Children Access to Education and the Labour Market The EU Approach to Child Poverty Concluding Remarks PART III: THE EUROPEAN IMMIGRATION DEBATE The Immigration Debate Family Reunification A Common Immigration Policy for Europe? Rights of Immigrants, Duties of States PART IV: IMMIGRANT CHILD POVERTY IN SWITZERLAND The Magnitude of Immigrant Population Residence Status of Foreigners Poverty Among Immigrant Children Access to Education and Employment Access to Health Services Other Indicators A Comparative Study of Immigrant Children From Former Yugoslavia, Portugal and Turkey Concluding Remarks PART V: IMMIGRANT CHILD POVERTY IN FRANCE Immigration: Magnitude and Trends The Status of Immigrants and Their Children Poverty Among Immigrant Children Access to Education and Employment Access to Health Care The Plight of Minor Children Roma Children Concluding Remarks PART VI: HOUSING POOR IMMIGRANT CHILDREN IN FRANCE The General Housing Situation The Housing Problems of Immigrants and Their Children Housing Aid Housing of Roma Children Concluding Remarks PART VII: SWITZERLAND VS. FRANCE: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE The Immigration Policies Income and Non-income Child Poverty Social and Political Participation Discrimination and Racism Well-being of Children PART VIII: SOME CONCLUSIONS Economic, Legal and Political Status of Immigrant Children Social Justice and Immigrant Children Notes Bibliography Index

Immigrant Child Poverty in Europe

Why should one be concerned with child poverty rather than with poverty in general? After all, child poverty is derived from poverty of families and heads of households in which poor children live. But highlighting children is important as they are the future of nations. Moreover, as we discussed in Chapter 1, it is unfair and unacceptable to leave child poverty unaddressed properly in the midst of overall prosperity in Europe.

The European Immigration Debate

The debate on immigration in Europe, that is, whether immigration from both inside and outside Europe or from one or other country inside it should be increased, stabilized or decreased, is not new (see, for example, Niessen, 1999). But it has become ever more heated since the enlargement of the European Union to 25 countries and then 27 (in January 2007 Bulgaria and Romania became new EU members). One wonders whether the immigrant issue may not have played at least some part in the rejection of the European Constitution by the French and Dutch citizens in 2005.

Housing Poor Immigrant Children in France

Poor housing is one of the most important chronic problems faced by immigrant children in France besides declining naturalization possibilities, inadequate access to proper health care, unemployment, school violence and delinquency, which all deeply affect the development of their capabilities discussed in Chapter 1. In this chapter we examine this situation in detail.

Switzerland vs France: A Comparative Perspective

Having examined poverty among immigrant children in Switzerland and France in Chapters 4 to 6, in this chapter we present a comparative picture of the two countries. Both Switzerland and France are rich countries of Western Europe. According to Table 2.1 in Chapter 2, Switzerland ranks as the second richest country in Western Europe, and France the eighth. However, the gap between the two countries was much narrower in 2004 in terms of GDP per capita in PPP

Immigrant Child Poverty in France

than the nominal dollar GDP per capita would suggest (see Table 7.1). The two countries are also similar with respect to such social indicators as infant mortality rates, adult literacy rates, public expenditures on education and health and annual population growth.

Globalization and Exclusion

Following Chapter 4 on the situation of immigrant children in Switzerland, we now examine their situation in France, another rich country in Western Europe. In 2004, the French Council on Employment, Incomes and Social Cohesion (CERC) estimated that roughly 1 million children in France were living below the French poverty rate of 50 per cent of the median income. Roughly 74 per cent of these children were in families headed by persons of French nationality. Roughly 26 per cent were living in families headed by persons of recent and not so recent immigration. The actual number of poor children, immigrant and non-immigrant, is probably higher today given the recent demographic trends (Martin, 2007, pp. 43–9).

Exclusion in Developing Countries

In Chapters 1 to 6 we discussed the economic and social issues largely in a national context, even though the framework in Chapter 2 explicitly recognized the importance of the global dimension. The causes of exclusion are a complex interaction of both internal and external factors. The purpose of this chapter is to extend our analysis to the external factors and the global dimension of exclusion. The two main global phenomena in the twenty-first century are (i) the emergence of a global economy involving increasing interdependence between countries of the North and South and (ii) an acceleration of the process of democratization in most developing societies briefly discussed in Chapter 6. Both these phenomena have implications for the analytical as well as normative aspects of the concept of exclusion discussed in the earlier chapters. While globalization may alleviate poverty and exclusion in some societies which are equipped to benefit from it, it may accentuate marginalization and exclusion in others, as is increasingly demonstrated by a growing anti-globalization movement and a softening of the protagonists‘ stance. Does globalization generate exclusion and social disintegration and thereby threaten social cohesion and sustainable growth? This question is addressed below in the context of both industrialized and developing countries.