This data insight describes levels, trends and geographic variation in child poverty before housing costs (BHC) across the Greater West of England, focusing on dependent children. A dependent child is defined as being aged 0-15, or aged 16-19 in full time education, living in a household and financially dependent on adults.

The data covers current child poverty rates, recent trends over time, with comparisons across the Greater West of England, combined authorities and the UK.

The Greater West of England is defined here as Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, Gloucestershire, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon and Wiltshire.  

The analysis is based on the Department for Work and pensions (DWP) Children in Low Income Families (CiLIF) dataset, accessed via Stat-Xplore, which uses administrative tax and benefit records to estimate the number and proportion of dependent children living in low-income households. Rates are calculated as a percentage of the relevant child population cohort and exclude children in families with no recourse to public funds or those not living in private households. Child poverty is defined as the proportion of dependent children living in households below 60% of the contemporary median income, measured before housing costs.

Differences between percentages are given in percentage points (pp).