Child Material Deprivation Index
Rethinking child poverty in Canada through a material deprivation lense
- Introduction
- The benefit of monitoring child poverty through a material-deprivation lens
- A child material deprivation scale for Canada
- Deprivation rate (percent) by deprivation threshold for children
- Why poverty using the Child Material Deprivation Scale differs from the official poverty rate
- The Canada Child Benefit reaches both income-poor and materially deprived children
- References
Introduction
A recent study from University of Ottawa researchers Geranda Notten and Mariam Sène shows that nearly 15 percent of children cannot afford to participate in organized activities outside of school, and there are nearly five percent whose parents cannot afford to buy the school supplies required by their teacher. These are examples of how children living in households with low financial resources can be excluded from activities, goods and services that many consider essential for children in Canada.
These items are included in Canada’s first child material deprivation (CMD) scale. Building on a methodology used to develop a child material deprivation scale in Europe, and using a 2023 dataset aimed at measuring material deprivation in Canada, the authors who constructed this scale found that 39.3 percent of children in their sample are missing one or more of the included items, and 26.6 percent are missing two or more. Considering that the measurement of material deprivation is an alternative measure of poverty, this means between 27 to 39 percent of children in the sample may be experiencing a poverty-level standard of living — an estimation that is far higher than the official child-poverty rate of 10.7 percent.
The study goes beyond standard income-based measures of child poverty typically used in high-income countries, as it adopts a deprivation lens to illustrate the adverse outcomes associated with poverty, regardless of whether the household’s income falls under an established income-poverty threshold. With the announcement from the federal government of the implementation of the new Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit (CGEB), along with its continued investments in the Canada Child Benefit (CCB), adopting this lens is crucial in order to design and evaluate the success of these and other support programs that are seeking to address the full scope of poverty and inadequate access to food in Canada.
The benefit of monitoring child poverty through a material-deprivation lens
Childhood is understood as a phase of life associated with distinct challenges and age-specific needs, during which family financial resources play a critical role in enabling access to goods, services and activities that are essential for children’s healthy development and their achievement of their full potential in adulthood.
Conversely, lack of financial resources and the associated hardships and stressors that accompany it can adversely affect children’s well-being and development.
As such, reducing child poverty is a political priority in countries around the world, including Canada. The Canada Child Benefit (CCB), introduced in 2016, is often seen as an income-security program that is successful in reducing child poverty because it is targeted to families with children, with benefit amounts depending on a family’s income.
The monitoring of household poverty, and the evaluation of programs addressing it, have typically been based on income measures — with the focus being on how many families live below a particular income threshold. Canada’s official measure of poverty, the Market Basket Measure (MBM), is an example of such an income-based poverty measure. Nevertheless, income represents only one financial component influencing a household’s overall standard of living. Metrics assessing low income do not fully capture variations in households’ access to resources — both financial and non-financial — nor do they consider additional factors shaping overall living conditions, such as family-specific circumstances and needs.
Material deprivation indices capture the concrete adverse outcomes associated with low financial resources. Such measures, used alongside income-based poverty indicators in many countries for decades, including those in the European Union, can capture the extent of poverty and evaluate the success of poverty-reducing programs more accurately.
Material deprivation indices count the number of households that cannot afford items or activities that most view as essential to achieve a decent standard of living — for example, having appropriate clothes to wear for a job interview, going to the dentist for an annual check-up or buying a small birthday present for a family member or friend. Under the academic leadership of Geranda Notten from the University of Ottawa, Food Banks Canada led the development of a made-in-Canada material deprivation index that showed that a quarter of the population were likely to be experiencing a poverty-level standard of living in 2023.
When it comes to child-specific measures of poverty, however, a key limitation is that poverty measures (both income and outcome-based) assess hardship at the household level, without capturing the extent to which financial resources are directed specifically toward children’s needs, thus occulting adverse outcomes that children may experience. The European Union, recognizing this limitation, developed a child material deprivation index. The Canadian material deprivation index builds on this to assess child poverty in the country.
Notten and Sène develop, for the first time in Canada, a child material deprivation scale that combines child-specific deprivation items with child-relevant, household-level deprivation items. Their study thereby illustrates that Canada is home to specific population groups, such as children, who have needs and experiences that can differ considerably from those of the average Canadian. Seniors and people with disabilities are other examples.
A material deprivation index developed for the general population can track differences in deprivation levels across groups and it can evaluate the effects of programs on such groups. However, deprivation indices that are developed with and for a specific population group provide a more tailored and comprehensive understanding of the specific adverse social and material outcomes commonly experienced by this group. Such measures may also be more sensitive to policy effects specifically directed towards those unique needs.
A child material deprivation scale for Canada
The authors of the study developed Canada’s first child material deprivation (CMD) scale drawing from the same survey that was used to create the Canada material deprivation index and replicating the methodology used to construct the official child material deprivation scale in the European Union.
The CMD scale includes a total of 15 items, seven being child-specific items and eight being household-specific and of direct relevance to the children in the household.
The child-specific deprivation items considered for the CMD include clothing, school supplies, toys and outdoor equipment, among others (see Table 1). Respondents were asked whether the children in their households had these items, and only respondents indicating that they did not have an item due to financial constraints were counted as deprived of that item.
Every deprivation item on the scale is based on observable facts, and each one demonstrates a strong statistical link to other well-known poverty indicators, such as food insecurity, having a pre-tax income below half of the national median, or encountering recent financial challenges such as needing to borrow money or seeking help from a charity.
The seven child-specific items and their associated rates of deprivation among children are listed below:
| Survey question | % of children living in households deprived of that item |
|---|---|
| Do the children in your household have the style of clothes they need to fit in with friends? | 10.5% |
| Are the children in your household able to participate in school trips and school events that cost money? | 10.6% |
| Do the children in your household participate in organized activities outside of school, such as arts, dance or music lessons, sports, or hobbies? | 14.8% |
| Do the children in your household have a suitable place at home to study or do homework? | 5.4% |
| Do the children in your household have their own indoor children’s toys that are appropriate for their age? | 5.5% |
| Do the children in your household have their own outdoor leisure equipment? | 10.7% |
| Do the children in your household have the school supplies required by their teacher? | 4.6% |
Source: Phase Two survey, calculations by authors (Notten & Sène, 2025, p. 6).
Note: Estimates are based on the unweighted sample of children in the survey and may not be representative for the child population in Canada.
The eight household-specific items, which are also part of the scale used for the Canada material deprivation index, have the following rates of deprivation among children:
| Survey question | % of children living in households deprived of that item |
|---|---|
| Are you/is everyone in your household able to get regular dental care, including teeth-cleaning and fillings, at least once a year? | 19.7% |
| Are you able to buy some small gifts for family or friends at least once a year? | 9.3% |
| Do you have a reliable Internet connection at home? | 3.4% |
| Are you/is everyone in your household able to eat meat or fish or a vegetarian equivalent at least every other day? | 8.7% |
| Are you able to participate in celebrations or other occasions that are important to people from your social, ethnic, cultural, or religious group? | 9.4% |
| Do you/does everyone in your household have at least one pair of properly fitting shoes and at least one pair of winter boots? | 6.3% |
| Are you able to keep your house or apartment at a comfortable temperature all year round? | 8.9% |
| Are you/is everyone in your household able to get around your community whenever you/they need to? | 4.9% |
Source: Phase Two survey, calculations by authors (Notten & Sène, 2025, p. 6).
Note: Estimates are based on the unweighted sample of children in the survey and may not be representative for the child population in Canada.
After developing the scale, a deprivation “threshold” is used to empirically distinguish between children living in “deprived” households (likely living at a poverty-level standard of living), and children living in non-deprived households. Further analysis shows that for the CMD, the optimal deprivation thresholds to distinguish between deprived and non-deprived households would be one or two missing items.
The chart below outlines the rates of deprivation for children depending on how many items are missing from their household from the 14-item scale. It shows that 39.3 percent of children are living in households missing one or more items, and 26.6 percent of children are missing two or more items.
Going further, this scale can also differentiate between severities of deprivation: non-deprived households would have no deprivations, marginally deprived ones would face 1 deprivation, moderately deprived households would face two to three deprivations, and those which are severely deprived would face four or more deprivations.
Deprivation rate (percent) by deprivation threshold for children
Deprivation rate (precent) by deprivation threshold for children
Source: Phase Two survey, calculations by authors (Notten & Sène, 2025, p. 8).
Why poverty using the Child Material Deprivation Scale differs from the official poverty rate
The results of this research are consistent with those of other research that studies material deprivation or similar indicators (such as food insecurity) and that looks at “adverse outcomes” resulting from low financial resources. Rates of material deprivation tend to be higher than those of income-based poverty measures, and in many instances, there is an imperfect overlap between those considered to be living in income poverty and those facing material deprivation. For example, this study found that 21 percent of children in the sample experience material deprivation while living in a household where the income is above the income-poverty threshold. Conversely, seven percent of children who are not materially deprived live in households that have incomes below the income-poverty threshold. There are three key reasons for this:
- Income is only one of various possible resources, financial or otherwise, that households use to achieve their living standard. Specifically, using income alone misses the potential for savings or access to credit to (temporarily) smooth consumption when income falls short. Households can also access other types of support available locally or through relationships, explaining why some households with a low(er) income manage to avoid material deprivation. Income measures also miss the spending on servicing debts and repaying them, which cannot go towards current consumption. These possibilities could explain why some households with a high(er) income still experience material deprivation.
- Price levels and thus purchasing power differ spatially, whereas governments’ income transfers, such as the Canada Child Benefit, are generally fixed nationally or provincially. Moreover, even though wages may be higher in more expensive cities, housing costs may be disproportionately more expensive, thus leaving less income for other expenses and lower purchasing power associated with a given amount of government benefits. These purchasing-power differences may explain why some households with lower income avoid material deprivation, whereas some with higher income experience it.
- The needs and circumstances of children and their households vary considerably across households. For example, having a child or other household member with a disability means more income is needed to meet the same essentials as a household where none of the members is disabled. Another example could be the impact of out-of-pocket spending on health or dental care in situations where they are not covered by an employer or government program.
The Canada Child Benefit reaches both income-poor and materially deprived children
Combining income and deprivation data available from the study with government-provided information on benefit amounts at different income levels, the researchers evaluated the degree to which Canada’s foremost program to reduce child poverty, the Canada Child Benefit, reaches poor households with children. The researchers found that the CCB is very successful in reaching children experiencing material deprivation, due to its near-universal coverage and generous support, which only gradually reduces as households move higher up the income ladder.
Despite this high success in reaching not only income-poor but also materially deprived children, the income-tested nature of the program drives some inequities regarding benefit amounts: some households with materially deprived children receive less support due to being slightly higher on the income scale, and other households with children receive more support despite reporting no deprivation, because their household incomes are on the lower end of the income scale.
Overall, it appears that near-universal, broad-based income support programs that have a similar design and approach to the CCB are successful at reducing poverty in a broader sense than just income, including material deprivation and food insecurity.
In sum, material-deprivation measures, such as the child material deprivation index, can be designed to highlight aspects of a poverty standard of living that uniquely apply to a specific population group and can thereby foster a deeper understanding of that group’s poverty experience and the variety of ways in which programs can address it.
Moreover, this study once more confirms that outcome-based measures of poverty, such as general or group-specific material deprivation indices, play an important role as complements to income-poverty measures when assessing the full extent of poverty and when evaluating the role of programs in addressing it.
References
Notten, G. and M. Sène, Poverty and child benefits in Canada through a child material deprivation lens, Department of Economics Working Paper Series, Working Paper #2507E, November 2025, 1-43, DOI: http://hdl.handle.net/10393/51069.
