Ministry of Social Development

This paper updates an earlier analysis that examined children’s likelihood of being included in a benefit at different ages. We find that up until 2007, children born between 2000 and 2007 were less likely to be included as a dependent child in a main benefit than children born in the 1990s at all ages. The proportion included in a benefit at birth or very soon after fell from around 25 % of children born in the 1990s to 20 % of children born in 2005 and 2006 and 18 % of children born in 2007. Although contact with the benefit system fell, as many as one in five children turning 15 in 2008 are estimated to have been supported by a main benefit for a total of seven or more of their first 14 years of life. An estimated one in ten spent a total of 1