Childhood, impoverished environments and living conditions. Measurements and disputes of meaning

Abstract

Poverty indicators increased in 2018, which was reflected - and more noticeably still - in childhood poverty, without observing state strategies to mitigate the impact. There are several organizations that produce data about poverty, which propose different methodological measurement strategies, but all agree that the impact is severely greater in the child population, placing it above 40%, when the indicators of general poverty are around 30%. The data acquires greatest relevance in as much its more concrete manifestations act and it violates basic rights of the childhood with the aggravating circumstance, that no state coping strategies were observed to cushion the impact, but rather, on the contrary, budgetary measures linked directly with the reduction and the sub-execution thereof. The central issue that guides this article is the growth of childhood poverty, its statistical characterization, is conditions of production and reproduction, the state actions or omissions, and the presentation of other voices - especially academic ones - that tried to account for the process and its implications It was prepared within the framework of a research project “Measurement and Mediatization of the Contemporary Social Question in Argentina. A reading of the main national social indicators”, developed by teaching researchers from the National University of Lanús.