Nearly 20 percent of Canadian children live in poverty even though their country is one of the richest in the world, a welfare group claimed Monday.
The National Council of Welfare, an independent but government-funded group, said there were signs that fewer Canadian children were living below the poverty line.
Using figures covering 1998, the most recent year for complete statistics, the council noted that "the rate (for child poverty) of 19.2 percent was the lowest since 1992."
Among some of its findings, the council, said poorly-educated single-parent mothers were most likely to have chidlren living in poverty.
Some 52.9 percent of families headed by single mothers lived in poverty, compared to 10.7 percent for two-parent families.
Nearly one third of poor children in 1998 lived in families where the major income earner had less than a high school diploma. |
