Read time: 7 mins
Based on Measuring Multidimensional Child Poverty in Australia by Sharon Bessell, Cadhla O Sullivan, Trevor Rose, Megan Lang, and Talia Avrahamzon, published 20 August 2025.
New research at ANU has developed a child-centred approach to understanding and measuring poverty. Defining poverty in terms of material basics, opportunities, and relationships provides the foundation for child-centred policymaking.
Read time: 7 mins
Based on Measuring Multidimensional Child Poverty in Australia by Sharon Bessell, Cadhla O Sullivan, Trevor Rose, Megan Lang, and Talia Avrahamzon, published 20 August 2025.
1
Australian governments urgently need an agreed definition of child poverty, and a means of measuring it. While income is sometimes used, poverty is multidimensional. So, income doesn’t fully measure what matters.
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Researchers at ANU Children’s Policy Centre used a transformative research methodology to learn what matters to children who are growing up in the context of poverty.
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The resulting MOR Framework assesses three interconnected ‘dimensions’ of poverty, accounting for their cumulative effect. The findings also show we need more child-centred data to use the new measure properly.
From 2022 to 2024, the Senate Community Affairs References Committee held an inquiry. It was tasked with investigating the extent and nature of poverty in Australia.
In 2025, its report was released. That the Australian Government act to reduce child poverty was one of its central recommendations. A child-centred measure of multidimensional poverty is essential to provide policy makers with the information they need to respond.
To measure poverty, an agreed definition is essential, which Australia does not currently have.
Groundbreaking research from the ANU Children’s Policy Centre provides a definition of child poverty, based on what children have said matters most to them:
“Poverty is the interplay between key material and non-material deprivations, limiting children’s choices now and into the future. It means children do not have the material basics, their opportunities are narrowed, and foundational relationships are not in place or are under pressure.”
Australia doesn’t currently use one official measure of child poverty. But we do know that one in six children live in income poverty. Money matters in understanding and responding to poverty.
But children say it’s not all that matters. And, sometimes, modest increases in income aren’t enough. So, what does ‘enough’ mean?
New research from the Children’s Policy Centre holds the answer to that question, finding what Australia needs to measure to respond to child poverty. It also outlines how we need to measure it.
It demonstrates that poverty has many ‘dimensions’ that limits children’s lives. Poverty means children missed opportunities to learn, be part of the community, or take part in activities that matter to them.
Poverty also puts children under continual stress, along with the people who mean most to them.
If policymakers place children at the centre of the way we think about and respond to poverty – we will find new policy solutions.
This is why the Children’s Policy Centre’s transformative research, conducted with children, families and communities, identified three dimensions of child poverty we can measure.
Within each dimension, we can also measure themes – if appropriate, child-centred data are collected.
Rights-based, child-centred research by the More for Children research team at the ANU Children’s Policy Centre has defined child poverty and identified what matters most for children when families live in poverty.
The findings help policymakers understand, assess and respond to child poverty.
Now that we know what needs to be measured and how, there is a next challenge: to gather and maintain the child-centred data we need to measure it.
“Child poverty is when children do not have the material basics, their opportunities are narrowed, and foundational relationships are not in place or are under pressure.”
