What Is Needed to Safeguard Children’s Growth and Upbringing — Young Carers Facing Social Disadvantage

Children’s social disadvantages often stem from overlapping negative factors beyond their own control, creating cycles that are transmitted to the next generation. Identifying the realities through outreach to families and ensuring prompt responses are pressing challenges.

• Considering Children’s Disadvantage and Difficulties
• Who Are the “Children in Poverty”?
• What Are Young Carers?
• Early Detection and Early Intervention Through Outreach Are Essential

Considering Children’s Disadvantage and Difficulties

From the author’s long years of practice, combined with quantitative analysis based on a survey of the living conditions of benefit-receiving households(*1), children suffering from social disadvantages emerged.

Such disadvantages often arose from overlapping negative factors beyond the children’s own efforts, whose synergistic effects heightened the risk of poverty.

The survey vividly depicted the harsh realities of deprivation that accompany growing up in poverty. These adverse experiences have produced intergenerational chains. As shown in Fig. 1, the children subject to social disadvantage in the “super high-risk” group are those identified in categories (1) through (7). The factors corresponding to these categories frequently overlap, deepening the severity and entrenchment of poverty.

Fig. 1 Children Suffering Social Disadvantage

Source: Michinaka (道中, 2014), “Child Poverty and Social Disadvantage—Breaking the Chain of Child Poverty,” materials for the Cabinet Office Study Group on Measures Against Child Poverty (Document 7), revised and updated.

Who Are the “Children in Poverty”?

Who, specifically, are the children who suffer from social disadvantages? Based on the author’s welfare field practice, they may include: (1)children from households receiving public assistance, (2)children in single-parent families, (3)children in infant or child care institutions, (4)children in juvenile self-reliance support facilities, (5)children in mother-and-child self-reliance support facilities, (6)children who have slipped through the safety net of compulsory education, and (7)young carers living under severely adverse circumstances.

These categories frequently overlap. As a result, such children not only suffer economic disadvantages but are also deprived of cultural opportunities both inside and outside the family, and their access to secondary and higher education is hindered. Previous research has reported that economic disparities generate educational disparities such as low academic achievement and low educational attainment, and that these educational disparities in turn become drivers of poverty, perpetuating the intergenerational cycle of “child poverty.”(*2)

What Are Young Carers?

Young carers are positioned within the super high-risk group facing multiple difficulties (see Fig. 1). When situations arise that require support, they often have no parents or others around them to rely on, and with no one nearby to consult, they are prone to isolation. Reports have documented cases in which children under the age of 18 providing family care cannot concentrate on their studies because they are consumed by caregiving responsibilities. The situation in which young carers are compelled to shoulder family caregiving duties remains insufficiently recognized, and access to appropriate social resources is limited.

The reality that young carers—youth who should become the bearers of the future society—are deprived of opportunities for learning and growth due to caregiving responsibilities represents a major social loss.

The degree of burden placed on caregivers varies greatly depending on whether there are family members able to cooperate, as well as on the mental and physical condition of the person being cared for and the actual extent of care required. When a family member comes to need care, the young carer is often forced to take on the role. Because much of their daily time, which should serve as nourishment for their growth, is consumed by caregiving, they fall into time poverty. Being absorbed in caregiving also risks leaving them physically and mentally exhausted.

Young carers, even when driven into a corner, often do not know what to do and are unaware of available consultation services or support systems. The current circumstances in which young carers are placed rob them of opportunities for growth and learning. Young carers must be re-recognized not as a problem confined to individual families, but as a societal issue.

Early Detection and Early Intervention Through Outreach Are Essential

In contemporary society, amid declining birthrates, shrinking family size has led to weakened family functions, while reduced local interaction has resulted in the erosion of community ties, making families more prone to isolation. Even when young carers are placed in adverse environments, they rarely raise their voices to seek support. They often do not think of turning to someone, nor do they know whom they could rely on. The realities and challenges of caregiving within the family are difficult for outsiders to notice. In local communities, people tend to become positive bystanders, saying things like “a good child who takes care of the family” or “it is natural to look after one’s parents,” thereby overlooking problems from the earliest stages.

When chronic difficulties persist over a long period, the family’s livelihood base becomes precarious, and economic hardship delivers an additional blow. The burden is particularly severe when immature children are responsible for caring for family members. Under the daily pressure of caregiving, it is difficult for them to have growth-promoting experiences, and their self-esteem and social abilities are not nurtured. While connections between schools and local communities can provide a starting point for early detection, schools remain overburdened, facing numerous difficult challenges such as bullying and absenteeism. As a result, unless the children themselves come forward with consultations or appeals, their situations are often overlooked. To identify young carers, it is essential for those around them to notice even small changes or signs—signals of SOS—and to use early detection as a basis for providing support. Grasping the realities of daily life through outreach to families and ensuring prompt responses are crucial, and the key challenge lies in how to prevent the overlooking of warning signs before children are driven to the breaking point.  

(First published in the November 2023 issue of "EN-ICHI FORUM".)

References

1.道中隆(2007)「生活保護受給層の貧困の様相−保護受給世帯における貧困の固定化と世代的連鎖」『生活経済政策−特集都市の下層社会』No.127,August,通巻543号,生活経済政策研究所.

2.道中(2016)が詳しい。『第2版貧困の世代間継承—社会的不利益の連鎖を断つ』pp.45-71,晃洋書房.

References

• 道中隆(2007)「生活保護受給層の貧困の様相－保護受給世帯における貧困の固定化と世代的連鎖」『生活経済政策－特集都市の下層社会』No.127,August, 通巻543 号, 生活経済政策研究所.
• 道中隆(2009)『生活保護と日本型ワーキングプア̶貧困の固定化と世代間継承』ミネルヴァ書房.
• 駒村康平・道中隆・丸山桂(2011)「被保護母子世帯における貧困の世代間連鎖と生活上の問題」『三田學会雑誌』103 巻4 号, 慶応義塾経済学会三田學会雑誌編集委員会pp.51-77.
• 道中隆(2014)「子どもの貧困と社会的不利益－子どもの貧困連鎖を断つ」『内閣府子どもの貧困対策に関する検討会』2014( 平成26) 年5 月22 日, 資料7.
• 道中隆(2016)「貧困の固定化と世代間連鎖」『市政研究－子どもの貧困とその施策を考える』Journal of Municipal Research 第191 号, 大阪市政調査会.
• 道中隆(2016)「子どもの貧困と背景を考えるー実態調査からみた支援のあり方」『研究紀要』第18 号, Bulletin of The Researches, 平成28 年度,( 公益財団法人) 兵庫県人権啓発協会.

Family Opinions