International review of approaches to tackling child poverty: Comparative summary report and key learnings for Scotland

Conclusions and lessons learned

These case studies were explored with the intention to identify areas of success or opportunity to reduce child poverty that could be factored into the Scottish Government’s next Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, which is due to be published by the end of March 2026.

While there are historical, political, economic and even philosophical differences that make direct comparison hard in some areas, there are thematic areas of active policy-making that do directly impact on child poverty and which are present across the case studies. These are drawn out in detail in the lessons section, but to summarise the key threads:

• Context matters. The starting points of the countries differ and so too do their levels of income equality. It is important to note that none of the case study countries started out with active child poverty reduction strategies but have reduced or maintained low poverty rates by combining policies aimed at increasing labour market participation, growth, equality and family wellbeing with poverty reductions.
• Interventions matter too. Perhaps the biggest impact across the studied countries flows from the way child benefits are implemented and how childcare is provided, alongside wider social security systems that support families with children. Being more generous in the support offered – particularly to families at-risk of poverty – is likely to be key in Scotland but is constrained by the extent of devolved powers and funding challenges. It is therefore important the UK-wide Child Poverty Strategy takes necessary action across a broad range of levers that will benefit children in Scotland, as well as in the rest of the UK.
• Not everyone is impacted equally. Children in single-parent families are more generously supported in several of the countries explored. The need for more tailored support for this and other at -risk groups is key, with the Danish experience highlighting how this can be achieved as a multi-lever response that both improves employment rates and provides more tailored parental leave and discounted childcare.
• Growth is key. All countries studied saw greater reductions in child poverty during growth periods, as might be expected. This also connects to the ability to be generous in welfare spending, which relies on a strong taxation base. This in turn raises questions of who pays and the level of redistribution that is socially acceptable within a specific geography – which is why context matters.

Lessons to consider for Scotland

This report and the underlying case studies have been published to support discussion on the interventions that can work in a Scottish context as the Government pursues its 2030 targets. Each of the detailed case studies shares detailed findings and recommendations and can be accessed here for Croatia, Denmark, Finland and Slovenia.

However, there are a series of key lessons for the Scottish Government to consider, based on both the analysis in this summary report and the more detailed analysis within the individual country case study reports. Based on this, we present the following ten lessons for the Scottish Government to consider:

1. Poverty levels are not only impacted by the policies discussed in this summary report, but also by the underlying economic and demographic context explored in depth in each of the case studies. It is therefore important to consider the starting point of each country when evaluating the impact policy interventions could have. The countries in focus for this report have greater income equality than Scotland, especially Denmark and Finland. This contributes to lower relative poverty rates as more people are likely to be closer to the median income, and less likely to fall below a relative poverty line.

2. It is notable that none of the countries studied had child poverty strategies or many targeted policies aimed specifically at reducing child poverty levels, yet they have either maintained relatively low or seen falling child poverty rates. This demonstrates the potential for Scotland to continue a joined-up approach to achieve the 2030 targets, combining policy intents to improve labour market participation, economic growth, gender equality and child wellbeing with poverty reduction.

3. Child poverty reductions are achieved when the social security system recognises and supports families with children. Child benefits are an important part of family policy and contribute to reductions in poverty in all countries studied. As such, this underlines the importance of Scotland’s efforts to increase financial support for children and low-income families through the Scottish Child Payment and Best Start Grants. Moreover, none of the countries studied cap the support available to a certain number of children, payments typically recognise the additional costs of younger children and, in some cases, payment rates increase for each additional child. This reinforces the importance of Scotland’s plans to mitigate the impacts of the two-child limit, and demonstrates how social security can be shaped to provide greater support to families at higher risk of poverty such as larger families and families with younger children.

4. In addition, several of the countries studied provide more generous support through their social security systems to single-parent families. This is a key at-risk group in Scotland, like many of the countries studied, and a similar approach could be beneficial in Scotland. However, the prevalence of single-parent families is higher in Scotland than in Finland and Denmark, which may make financing such policies more challenging. Yet, Denmark shows what is possible by taking a multi-lever approach to supporting single parents. Targeted reforms to personal taxation, tailored parental leave, discounted childcare and – in some municipalities – active labour market policies focused on boosting employment among single parents alongside cash-transfers have improved rates of employment among single parents in the last decade.

5. Childcare provision and subsidies are important to support labour market participation of mothers and this is an area of opportunity for Scotland to provide a more comprehensive system. Several of the countries studied offer greater subsidisation of childcare costs, backed by a right to a childcare place for all children under school age, as well as local authorities taking a proactive role in ensuring adequate provision to meet the needs of their residents. These systems differ from the UK’s hours-based system, offering a ‘pure subsidy’ (Slovenia, Finland and Denmark) giving more flexibility to families. In Finland and Denmark, wrap-around care for school-aged children also supports parents, especially mothers, remain or enter full-time employment.

6. High employment rates (especially amongst women) help reduce poverty, but this is most effective where full-time employment is high and in periods of wage growth. All countries studied experienced greater reductions in child poverty during periods of economic growth, where GDP per capita grew. Furthermore, high levels of labour market participation in all the case studies are supported by a cultural norm amongst parents towards working full-time working, longer hours and at higher intensity, with policy support via generous parental leave schemes and affordable childcare. Also important has been the impact of minimum wage policies and collective bargaining which has driven up wages. Collective bargaining has also sought to improve working conditions, although it is notable that collective bargaining in Denmark is supportive of Denmark’s liberal approach to labour market regulation. Therefore, it is important Scotland considers country-specific contexts when drawing lessons to increase labour market participation and inform its Fair Work First initiative.

7. Funding generous welfare spending is difficult, and this is a common challenge, even in countries with Nordic welfare systems where there is higher general acceptance of redistributive cash transfers. Denmark and Finland have both had to scale back spending on social expenditure and increase conditionality in recent years. However, Scotland can still draw lessons from these countries, which show that broader tax bases with median earners paying more into the system, redistribution towards families with children, and also greater employer contributions can help reduce child poverty.^[169]

8. Contributory social security in the case study countries is critical to ensuring a good level of income replacement in the event of loss of employment. Income replacement rates are generally higher in those countries with generous contribution systems. In the UK, the principle of contribution has gradually been eroded from the social security system. Attempts have been made to retain this through New Style Jobseeker’s Allowance and New Style Employment and Support Allowance, but the caseload for this is small. The UK Government is consulting on plans to strengthen contributory benefits. It will be important for the Scottish Government to work closely on this issue, exploring strengthening support for families with children in particular.

9. There is a key role for in-kind support, especially if it is offered universally. Scotland already does this in a number of key ways, such as providing all children in primaries 1-5 with free school meals during term-time (regardless of financial circumstances) and providing all newborn babies in Scotland with a Baby Box of essential items. Finland also makes a maternity box available; however, their experience highlights the importance of choice – with parents being able to choose the box of essentials or a cash alternative.

10. It is important to recognise where policy implementation and overall objectives have unintended consequences. This was evident in Denmark’s benefit ceiling, which required subsequent additional policy to rectify through the introduction of a temporary child subsidy for large families. The Slovenian minimum wage increases have also created a situation where the minimum and median wages are similar, with knock-on consequences for claiming certain benefits.