The recognition of child poverty as a public concern of the State

Abstract

Spain has been exhibiting high rates of child poverty for many years. Since the mid-1990s we have had data showing that the concentration of economic deprivation in households with children in a country with our level of development is unusual. However, this situation only began to be taken as socially problematic at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, and to sneak into the political agenda well into the second decade. In the first part of this article we trace the new adoption of policies in this field beginning in 2018. In the second section we analyze the different factors that led to the public problematization of the phenomenon at the international and national levels. We examine different relevant dimensions in this process: the role of the political agenda of other governments and international organizations, the activity of experts and academics and the mobilization of social entities, the intensification of the damage caused by the crisis. In the final section, we theoretically reflect on the adoption of the new policies by the government in light of different analytical frameworks potentially accounting for the development of political initiatives: “institutionalism”, attention to “policy communities” and “ windows of opportunity”. Our analysis contributes to highlight dynamics of concurrence and interaction between various factors in the problematization process, entry into the political agenda and adoption of a new policy