Child poverty and educational outcomes in Ireland

Children and young people in Ireland are more likely than other age groups to live in households experiencing poverty and deprivation (CSO, 2025). Experience of poverty is significantly related to poorer educational outcomes, though to date there has been little comprehensive research, especially in the Irish context, on what factors explain this impact of poverty. This study measures exposure to persistent poverty as the number of survey waves in which children were living in households in the lowest income quintile and/or experiencing difficulties making ends meet. Growing Up in Ireland data for Cohort ’08 are used to look at the relationship between exposure to persistent poverty and a range of educational outcomes at ages 9 and 13, covering cognitive development, educational expectations, and attitudes to school and school subjects. The report examines the extent to which these patterns are explained by the impact of poverty on family relationships, the home learning environment, out-of-school activities, and neighbourhood, teacher and school factors.

Around half of 9- and 13-year-olds have experienced at least one spell of poverty, with one in five children experiencing three or more spells by age 13. For some, experience of poverty is continuous while others move in and out of poverty over time. Reading test scores at age 9 and verbal fluency test scores at age 13 decline with each additional spell in poverty. Structural equation models were used to explore which set of factors best explained the impact of poverty on test scores. At both ages 9 and 13, the home learning environment plays an important role; in other words, test scores are lower because of the impact of persistent poverty on access to books, reading to the child at age 5, and other activities that help enhance cognitive development. Children living in poverty are less likely to be involved in cultural and sports activities, which plays an important role in mediating the effects on test scores at age 9. Teacher and school factors, especially the quality of teacher–student relationships, become a more significant influence on measures of cognitive development in adolescence.