Deprived Children Have 'No Career Goal'

A report published on Wednesday has found that one in four of those from deprived homes believe that 'few' or 'none' of their career goals are achievable.

The study, known as Broke – Not Broken, and commissioned by the Princes Trust, highlights a clear aspiration gap between the UK's richest and poorest young people, showing that a quarter of kids from poor homes feel that "people like them don't succeed in life".

DUP Junior Minister Jonathan Bell (pictured) welcomed the report saying it represented considerable work undertaken to identify the causes of poverty and the barriers to prosperity.

"The Executive wants to implement actions that work. We want to break down those barriers that keep people trapped in poverty and deprivation.

"The development of an action plan that sets out the key initiatives arising from the child poverty strategy, gives us an unprecedented opportunity to look at what has worked in the past and ensure that we are using best practice to move forward.

According to the report, based on interviews with 2,311 16-to-24-year-olds from across the UK, young people growing up in poverty are significantly less likely to imagine themselves buying a nice house or even finding a job in the future.

They are three times as likely to believe they will 'end up on benefits for at least part of their life' and almost four times as likely to think they will 'end up in a dead-end job'.

The report, by The Prince's Trust and The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, also said that the childhood dreams of the UK's poorest youngsters start to slip away as they get older.

Martina Milburn, Chief Executive of The Prince's Trust said: "The aspiration gap between the UK's richest and poorest young people is creating a 'youth underclass' – who tragically feel they have no future.

"We simply cannot ignore this inequality," she said.

Among other findings in the report are that more than a quarter of poor families had few or no books in their home, while one in three were 'rarely' or 'never' read to by their parents.

One in six young people in Northern Ireland said their parents struggled to put food on the table due to a lack of money, while young people growing up in poverty were almost twice as likely as those from wealthy families to scale down their ambitions as they get older.

(DW/GK)