MORE THAN 60 per cent of three-year-olds are in households that are finding it difficult to make ends meet, according to an ongoing national study of children.
Almost two-thirds of families with three-year-olds reported that the recession had a very significant or significant effect on them while the level of unemployment among the fathers more than doubled from 6 per cent when the child was nine months old, to almost 14 per cent today.
It also showed that children in one-parent families had a much higher chance of being in low-income households.
The figures were released yesterday as part of a national longitudinal study: Growing Up in Ireland – The Infant Cohort at 3 Years, which interviewed more than 11,000 parents when their children were nine months old and again when the children turned three.
Under the health section, 98 per cent of parents described their children as being in good health. However, one in four children was either overweight or obese at the age of three.
The study found a child’s weight related to social class: while just 5 per cent of children of families classed as professional/ managerial were classified as being obese, this rose to 9 per cent in the most disadvantaged category.
The study also indicated that, by the age of three, differences had emerged in the health of children depending on social class.
While three-quarters of children in the more advantaged social classes were “very healthy” at three, just two-thirds of those in the most disadvantaged group were classified as such.
Just under 16 per cent of three-year-olds were reported as having a long-standing illness, condition or disability. The three most commonly reported illnesses were asthma; eczema or skin allergies; and food or digestive allergies.
Children’s consumption of energy-dense foods such as crisps, sweets, chips, and non-diet fizzy drinks increased as parental education fell.
Almost two-thirds of children whose mothers had a lower secondary education or less ate at least one portion of crisps in the 24 hours before the interview, compared with 36 per cent of those from degree-level backgrounds.
Two-thirds of children received at least one course of antibiotics in the 12 months preceding the interview and children with a full medical card received a higher number of antibiotic courses on average.
The family life and childcare section of the study found 50 per cent of three-year-olds were in some form of non-parental childcare for eight or more hours a week.
Children spent an average of 23 hours a week in childcare.
When it came to discipline, most mothers said they tackled bad behaviour by talking to their children instead of using other forms of punishment. More than half said they never smacked their child; 12 per cent said they used smacking as a form of discipline “now and again” while less than 1 per cent said they smacked their children more frequently.
Growing Up in Irelandis a government study which is following the progress of two groups of children: 11,100 infants who were nine months old when the first interviews began in 2008; and 8,500 children who were nine years old when the study commenced.
The second round of interviews with the infant cohort took place between January and August 2011 when a total of 90 per cent of the original sample of 11,100 infants were successfully re-interviewed.
The Department of Children and Youth Affairs is overseeing and managing the study, which is being carried out by a consortium of researchers led by the Economic Social Research Institute and Trinity College Dublin.