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In this paper we make use of the first and second waves of the 2008 and 1998 cohorts of the Growing Up in Ireland study, to develop a multidimensional and dynamic approach to understanding the impact on families and children in Ireland of the Great Recession. Economic vulnerability is operationalised as involving a distinctive risk profile in relation to relative income, household joblessness and economic stress. We find that the recession was associated with a significant increase in levels of economic vulnerability and changing risk profiles involving a more prominent role for economic stress for both the 2008 and 1998 cohorts. The factors affecting vulnerability outcomes were broadly similar for both cohorts. Persistent economic vulnerability was significantly associated with lone parenthood, particularly for those with more than one child, lower levels of primary care giver (PCG) education and, to a lesser extent, younger age of PCG at child’s birth, number of children and a parent leaving or dying. Similar factors were associated with transient vulnerability in the first wave but the magnitude of the effects was significantly weaker particularly in relation to lone parenthood and level of education of the PCG. For entry into vulnerability the impact of these factors was again substantially weaker than for persistent and transient vulnerability indicating a significantly greater degree of socioeconomic heterogeneity among the group that became vulnerable during the recession. The findings raise policy and political problems that go beyond those associated with catering for groups that have tended to be characterized by high dependence on social welfare.

In  this  paper  we  make  use  of  the  first  and  second  waves  of  the 2008  and 1998  cohorts  of  the  Growing  Up  in  Ireland  study,  to  develop  a  multidimensional  and  dynamic  approach  to understanding the impact on families and children in Ireland of the Great Recession. Economic vulnerability is operationalised as involving a distinctive risk profile in relation to relative income, household  joblessness  and  economic  stress.  We  find  that  the  recession  was  associated  with  a  significant increase in levels of economic vulnerability and changing risk profiles involving a more prominent  role  for  economic  stress  for  both  the  2008  and  1998  cohorts.  The  factors  affecting  vulnerability outcomes were broadly similar for both cohorts. Persistent economic vulnerability was  significantly  associated  with  lone  parenthood,  particularly  for  those  with  more  than  one  child, lower levels of primary care giver (PCG) education and, to a lesser extent, younger age of PCG  at  child’s  birth,  number  of  children  and  a  parent  leaving  or  dying.  Similar  factors  were  associated  with  transient  vulnerability  in  the  first  wave  but  the  magnitude  of  the  effects  was significantly weaker particularly in relation to lone parenthood and level of education of the PCG. For entry into vulnerability the impact of these factors was again substantially weaker than for persistent and transient vulnerability indicating a significantly greater degree of socioeconomic heterogeneity among the group that became vulnerable during the recession. The findings raise policy and political problems that go beyond those associated with catering for groups that have tended to be characterized by high dependence on social welfare.

None of the many critical moments in Ireland’s often tumultuous history was more significant or defining than the Easter Rising of 1916. Central to the Rising was the Proclamation of Independence, in which Pádraig Pearse declared the new nation’s resolve to cherish all its children equally. CHERISHING ALL THE CHILDREN EQUALLY? brings together contributions from a range of disciplines to shed light on the processes of child development and to investigate how that development is influenced by a variety of demographic, family and socio-economic factors. Making extensive use of research and data that have emerged over recent years from the Growing Up in Ireland longitudinal study of children, the book considers whether or not all children can participate fully and equitably in contemporary Irish society. It asks whether or not we do, in fact, cherish all our children equally in modern Ireland, regardless of their family circumstances, health or ethnic background.

TABLES OF CONTENTS:

1. Introduction
2. Changing Perceptions and Experiences of Childhood, 1916-2016
3. Children and Families, Then & Now
4. Is Family Structure a Source of Inequality in Children’s Lives?
5. Parental Investment & Child Development
6. Inequalities in Access to Early Care and Education in Ireland
7. Inequalities from the Start? Children’s Integration into Primary School
8. Insights into the Prevalence of Special Educational Needs
9. The Experiences of Migrant Children in Ireland
10. Social Variation in Child Health & Development: A Life-course Approach
11. Child Access to GP Services in Ireland: Do User Fees Matter?
12. Anti-Social Behaviour at Age 13
13. Child Economic Vulnerability Dynamics in the Recession
14. Concluding Observations

In this paper we make use of the 9-year-old wave of the Growing Up in Ireland study to analyse multidimensional deprivation in Ireland. The Alkire and Foster adjusted headcount ratio approach (AHR; Alkire and Foster, Journal of Public Economics, 95, 476–487, 2011a, Journal of Economic Inequality, 9, 289–314, 2011b) applied here constitutes a significant improvement on union and intersection approaches and allows for the decomposition of multidimensional poverty in terms of dimensions and sub-groups. The approach involves a censoring of data such that deprivations count only for those above the specified multidimensional threshold leading to a stronger set of interrelationships between deprivation dimensions. Our analysis shows that the composition of the adjusted headcount ratio is influenced by a range of socio-economic factors. For less favoured socio-economic groups dimensions relating to material deprivation are disproportionately represented while for the more advantaged groups, those relating to behavioral and emotional issues and social interaction play a greater role. Notwithstanding such variation in composition, our analysis showed that the AHCR varied systematically across categories of household type, and the social class, education and age group of the Primary Caregiver. Furthermore, these variables combined in a cumulative manner. The most systematic variation was in relation to the headcount of those above the multidimensional threshold rather than intensity, conditional on being above that cut-off point. Without seeking to arbitrate on the relative value of composite indices versus disaggregated profiles, our analysis demonstrates that there is much to be gained from adopting an approach with clearly understood axiomatic properties. Doing so allows one to evaluate the consequences of the measurement strategy employed for the understanding of levels of multidimensional deprivation, the nature of such deprivation profiles and socioeconomic risk patterns. Ultimately it permits an informed assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the particular choices made.

None of the many critical moments in Ireland’s often tumultuous history was more significant or defining than the Easter Rising of 1916. Central to the Rising was the Proclamation of Independence, in which Pádraig Pearse declared the new nation’s resolve to cherish all its children equally. CHERISHING ALL THE CHILDREN EQUALLY? brings together contributions from a range of disciplines to shed light on the processes of child development and to investigate how that development is influenced by a variety of demographic, family and socio-economic factors. Making extensive use of research and data that have emerged over recent years from the Growing Up in Ireland longitudinal study of children, the book considers whether or not all children can participate fully and equitably in contemporary Irish society. It asks whether or not we do, in fact, cherish all our children equally in modern Ireland, regardless of their family circumstances, health or ethnic background.

TABLES OF CONTENTS:

1. Introduction
2. Changing Perceptions and Experiences of Childhood, 1916-2016
3. Children and Families, Then & Now
4. Is Family Structure a Source of Inequality in Children’s Lives?
5. Parental Investment & Child Development
6. Inequalities in Access to Early Care and Education in Ireland
7. Inequalities from the Start? Children’s Integration into Primary School
8. Insights into the Prevalence of Special Educational Needs
9. The Experiences of Migrant Children in Ireland
10. Social Variation in Child Health & Development: A Life-course Approach
11. Child Access to GP Services in Ireland: Do User Fees Matter?
12. Anti-Social Behaviour at Age 13
13. Child Economic Vulnerability Dynamics in the Recession
14. Concluding Observations

None of the many critical moments in Ireland’s often tumultuous history was more significant or defining than the Easter Rising of 1916. Central to the Rising was the Proclamation of Independence, in which Pádraig Pearse declared the new nation’s resolve to cherish all its children equally. CHERISHING ALL THE CHILDREN EQUALLY? brings together contributions from a range of disciplines to shed light on the processes of child development and to investigate how that development is influenced by a variety of demographic, family and socio-economic factors. Making extensive use of research and data that have emerged over recent years from the Growing Up in Ireland longitudinal study of children, the book considers whether or not all children can participate fully and equitably in contemporary Irish society. It asks whether or not we do, in fact, cherish all our children equally in modern Ireland, regardless of their family circumstances, health or ethnic background.

TABLES OF CONTENTS:

1. Introduction
2. Changing Perceptions and Experiences of Childhood, 1916-2016
3. Children and Families, Then & Now
4. Is Family Structure a Source of Inequality in Children’s Lives?
5. Parental Investment & Child Development
6. Inequalities in Access to Early Care and Education in Ireland
7. Inequalities from the Start? Children’s Integration into Primary School
8. Insights into the Prevalence of Special Educational Needs
9. The Experiences of Migrant Children in Ireland
10. Social Variation in Child Health & Development: A Life-course Approach
11. Child Access to GP Services in Ireland: Do User Fees Matter?
12. Anti-Social Behaviour at Age 13
13. Child Economic Vulnerability Dynamics in the Recession
14. Concluding Observations

Differentials in physical activity (PA) between social and economic groups has been shown to contribute significantly to social gradients in health and life expectancy, yet relatively little is known about why differentials in PA emerge. This paper uses longitudinal data on a nationally representative sample of 6,216 young people aged between 9 and 18, from Ireland, to measure the role of family, school and neighbourhood level factors in accounting for differentials in PA trajectories between groups of young people, defined by level of maternal education, whilst adjusting for the individual characteristics of the young person (sex, age, personality, body mass index and health-status). Levels of PA fall significantly across the sample between 9 and 18, and the decline in PA is larger for the children of lower educated mothers. We find a clear gradient in PA at each age by maternal education for both males and females. Descriptive analyses found social gradients in the majority of our risk factors. Using multi-level, linear spline regression models to decompose differentials between groups, we find that family-level mechanisms account for the biggest proportion of the differential in PA for both males (50.8%) and females (35.1%). Differences in income across maternal education categories accounted for 24.1% of the differential for males and 14.7% among females, making it the second most effective mechanism in explaining the social patterning of PA. Neighbourhood-level processes resulted in a modest reduction in the same differential, while school level processes had the effect of equalising differences in PA across maternal education groups.

Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic wrought acute harm to mental wellbeing across the globe; not least through its impact on morbidity and mortality, but also from health anxieties, lockdowns and their economic fallout, the closure of key services, as well as the disruption of social networks. However, while the pandemic’s onset was global, not everyone experienced the same harm to their mental health. This study draws on information on the mothers of 12-year-olds from the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) study to look at what helped cushion the negative impact of the pandemic on their mental health.

Data and Methods
The study draws on GUI data on Cohort ’08, a nationally representative sample of children born 2007-2008 along with their caregivers. In December 2020, the GUI team conducted a survey of primary caregivers (98 per cent of whom are mothers) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mothers’ mental health is captured using the Short-form Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), with higher scores indicating a greater risk of depression. The longitudinal nature of GUI means we can compare measures of mothers’ mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic (December 2020) with two previous timepoints before the pandemic – wave 3 (2013/2014) and wave 5 (2017/2018) – to see whether trends in depression changed significantly over the pandemic.

The study looks at four sets of factors: (1) mothers’ social resources, such as the level of social cohesion in their neighbourhood (e.g., trust and reciprocity among neighbours) or the support they receive from friends/family; (2) their economic resources, such as the share of income received from welfare, or how difficult they feel it is to ‘make ends meet’; (3) the quality of mothers’ local environment, such as the degree of traffic problems; and (4) their religiosity, such as how often they attend church. All of these factors are measured prior to the onset of the pandemic to reflect the resources mothers had at their disposal going into the crisis.

To understand how these buffering factors may have cushioned mothers’ mental health, the study uses a set of measures on what experiences mothers had during the pandemic. These include whether they found supervising their child’s schoolwork stressful, whether they experienced a loss of income/employment, or whether they had COVID or were anxious about friends/family contracting it.

Results

What factors cushioned the impact of the pandemic on mothers’ mental health?

In the years prior to the pandemic (2013/2014 to 2017/2018), levels of depression among mothers remained relatively low and stable. However, depression scores among mothers rose steeply with the onset of the pandemic (compared to 2017/18), nearly doubling. Yet, not all mothers experienced an equal increase in depression scores.

Stronger economic resources, and better household conditions, played a protective role: depression scores rose less among mothers who reported being able to ‘financially make ends meet’ easily (compared to those who found it difficult) and among mothers who lived in less overcrowded housing. The local environments in which mothers were living also helped cushion their mental health. Mothers who lived in neighbourhoods where heavy traffic was not a problem, and those who lived in rural areas, saw their depression scores increase less over the pandemic, compared to mothers in more urban areas or where traffic was a major problem.

The strongest protective factors were mothers’ social resources and their religiosity. Mothers who, just before the pandemic, had a partner in the household and who felt they got the help they needed from friends and family saw their depression scores increase less over the pandemic. Those who reported living in more socially cohesive neighbourhoods (where neighbours trust each other, exchange favours, or feel more attached) – what are termed in the research literature as high social capital areas – were more strongly protected against depression during the pandemic. Symptoms of depression also increased much more steeply among mothers who never attended church before the pandemic compared to mothers who used to attend daily or weekly (even though in-person services had not resumed at the time of the survey).

How did these buffering factors protect mothers’ mental health?

Social resources cushioned mothers’ mental health because, during the pandemic, these mothers experienced better family relations and struggled less with care work, home schooling, and their children’s return to school. Economic resources supported mental wellbeing by reducing financial stresses, enabling better home/outdoor environments, and likely allowing families to purchase the tablets, laptops, and high-speed internet needed to engage in home schooling and working more easily. A better-quality local environment allowed mothers to spend more time outside and improved family relations. It was harder to explain the protective role of religiosity, but it may relate to greater optimism or a stronger sense of meaning in life that help protect people from the stress of adversity.

Conclusion and policy implications
This study finds strong evidence that the social, economic, religious, and environmental characteristics in people’s lives protect their mental health when experiencing adverse life events. While some of these characteristics are personal, others can be influenced by policy. Investment in local infrastructure to enhance access to green spaces and reduce neighbourhood disorder will pay dividends in supporting the mental wellbeing of women and their families. Furthermore, community development initiatives to foster a sense of local belonging and trust will enhance families’ capacity to weather crises. Integrating such perspectives into crisis management could help protect societies, particularly more vulnerable groups, and potentially weaken the well-documented long-term scarring effects that adverse life events have on people’s lives.