Anita Sangha | 15 June 2026
Contents
Recommendations for further research
Executive summary
Wealth and income inequality is increasingly salient in UK politics today. Our Wealth Gap Risk Register found that the absolute wealth gap grew by 54% between 2011 and 2021, and there is plenty of evidence (cited in the risk register) that wealth, and its absence, plays a bigger role than ever before in shaping life chances and outcomes.
Children may be particularly affected by the consequences of wealth inequality. Today, an estimated one in three children live in poverty in the UK. However, relatively little research has been conducted into how this affects both the experiences of children and their perceptions of inequality. Most explorations of experiences, perceptions and beliefs around economic inequality in the UK have focused on adults, rather than on children and young people, or on how their beliefs might change as they grow up and become more aware of social and moral concerns about fairness and equality.
In this report, we synthesise some of the academic research that investigates children and young people’s beliefs about, and responses to, economic inequality. Across a rapid review of 21 peer-reviewed studies, we find that:
- Older children are more likely to believe in equitable redistributions of resources and opportunities than younger children
- Older children are more likely to perceive inequalities as unfair than younger children, even when it advantages them or their social group
- Children have been shown to have negative emotional responses to social exclusion based on economic status
- The experience of inequality can reduce prosocial behaviour (i.e. sharing) in young children
- Children’s beliefs about inequality are shaped by their own experiences in both real-world and experimental contexts
Background
Children and young people’s lives are defined by the effects of economic inequalities. Children have borne the brunt of the challenges facing public services, and, along with adults, have faced delays in accessing timely and high quality healthcare, and access to safe and secure housing. Clearly, the pandemic had a profound impact on the lives of children and young people. Children and young people have also reported particular concern about the levels of climate change as with extreme weather events have become more frequent and harmful (a majority of primary school children are worried about climate change and the future).
The latest National Youth Strategy acknowledges the importance of economic inequalities and their impacts directly, and the Big Ask survey by the Children’s Commissioner suggests that children want to see a fairer society. A survey of 18 - 24-year-olds by Sutton Trust and More in Common revealed similar findings, with more young adults concerned about the impact of inequality on access to education, work, health, and social mobility than the general adult population. A majority of those surveyed believed that the government should do more to tackle inequalities and believed that coming from a wealthy family was important for getting ahead in life.
In recent years, the voices of young people have become more central. Wales’ Future Generations Act requires leaders to consider the interests of children across policy domains. Commitments to lower the voting age to 16 by the next election have been suggested to help empower young people.
Methodology
This report collates the existing research on children and young people’s understanding of and beliefs about economic inequality, and their perceptions of fairness when perceiving and experiencing unequal outcomes. We also consider how economic inequalities might affect their willingness to engage in prosocial behaviours to benefit others in need.
We conducted a rapid review of empirical studies that investigated the relationship between economic inequality and children’s moral reasoning and behaviour. We searched two databases (Pubmed, Web of Science) using the same search terms (socioeconomic status, socio-economic, inequality*, child*, young people*, moral*, prosocial, behaviour*, judge*, reason*).
We included papers that were empirical studies, (e.g. experiments, observational studies, interviews) and that were published in the last 20 years in this review. We excluded any materials that were book chapters, review papers, meta-analyses, or other systematic reviews.
After reviewing abstracts and removing papers that did not meet inclusion criteria, we had a final sample of 21 papers. Papers were read in full before key information was extracted and reproduced into a matrix. For the purposes of this report, we focused on key research questions asked, methods, sample sizes, and overall findings. Full citations to each paper are available in Table 1.
The final sample of papers included 21 empirical studies, with a total of 1,790 participants from 7 countries (USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, Turkey, and Nepal). Across the sample, two studies were qualitative studies (interviews), and the remaining 19 were quantitative (experiments or observational studies). The majority of studies focused on children aged between 4 and 8, but across studies, participants’ ages ranged from 3 to 24. Information about each study (demographics, sample, method, age of participants) is included in Table 1.
Table 1: List of studies included
Across studies, researchers explored a range of topics, including friendship, social exclusion, donation behaviours, access to opportunities, multiple disadvantages, feelings towards the disadvantaged, addressing inequalities, decision-making processes, distributing public goods, distributing novel resources, experiences of inequality, and social mobility.
Key findings
Children and young people’s understanding of and responses to inequalities develop with age
Several studies found evidence of developmental differences in perceptions of fairness in the context of inequalities as their ability to consider moral, social and psychological knowledge develop. This can explain why, with age, children view inequalities, particularly those that disadvantage the poor, more negatively, i.e. more unfair.
For example, Chao et al. (2025), found that older children in general perceived inequalities as more unfair than younger children. While younger children viewed inequalities that disadvantaged them as more unfair than those that advantaged them, older children believed both forms of inequality were unfair. Similarly, Essler and Paulus (2021) found that older children (aged 8) were more likely to support “Robin Hood” strategies (i.e. taking from the rich to give to the poor) over “Matthew” strategies (i.e. taking from the poor and giving to the rich) than younger children (aged 4).
Elenbaas and Mistry (2021) found that older children believed that wealth should be more equally distributed than younger children, while Rizzo et al. (2020) found that older children asked to evaluate a resource allocation strategy that perpetuated inequalities as more unfair than younger children, even when it benefitted them personally. Taken together, these studies suggest that, with age, children’s beliefs about economic inequality can become more negative as they develop more sophisticated moral reasoning skills.
In addition, with age, children become more able to consider the role of social rules and preferences, influencing their judgements about inequalities. For example, Ellenbaas and Killen (2016) found that young children, but not older children, were less likely to consider social groups membership to influence how resources were allocated between people.
Attitudes vary depending on children’s own experiences of inequality
Studies also found evidence of the effect of real-world inequalities on children’s reasoning about economic inequality more generally. For example, Mistry and Yassine (2022) found that young people from poorer backgrounds were more critical of the rich, while Gonul et al. (2024) found that social exclusion of the poor was viewed as more unfair by older adolescents than children, particularly those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. In contrast, Grutter et al. (2021) found that children from wealthier backgrounds were more likely to cite concerns about violations of social hierarchies when explaining why friendships between rich and poor children would be disapproved of by rich parents.
Experiencing inequality can reduce prosocial behaviour
Multiple studies found evidence that the experience of inequality can reduce prosocial behaviours, such as donating to a child in need (Kirkland et al. 2020, 2021) or willingness to reduce inequalities when in a position of advantage, both in an individual (Chao et al. 2025) and group context (McGuire et al. 2019). However, this effect can vary with age, with older children being less likely than younger children to act selfishly in the context of inequalities that benefit them personally (McGuire et al. 2019, Chao et al. 2025).
These findings are broadly in line with those of adult studies: Yang and Konrath (2023) conducted a meta-analysis of 100 studies investigating the effect of inequality on prosocial behaviour, finding a significant, but small, negative effect. However, more research in children and young people using a broader range of prosocial behaviours beyond donation (e.g. sharing, helping, caring) is needed to better explore this potential relationship.
Social exclusion of the poor elicits negative emotions and evaluations of others
Several studies found that perceiving unfair inequalities was associated with increased negative affect in children and young people. Dys et al (2019) found that older children aged 8 felt more negative emotions than younger children aged 4 when excluding a poor child. Children also expected others to feel negative emotions (e.g. sadness, loneliness) when being excluded (Acar and Sivis, 2023).
Detailed findings
Recommendations for further research
Several areas are ripe for further study:
- Integrating a broader range of economic measures of inequality, e.g. family wealth or national wealth statistics
- Exploring a broader range of prosocial behaviours in different outcome measures in relation to economic inequality
- Considering channels of communication about inequality through which messages about inequality are communicated to children and young people, e.g. families, schools, social media
- Engaging in more cross-cultural research
Measures of inequality
Many of the studies cited rely on either manipulated sources of inequality in experimental paradigms, or a limited set of real-world measures (e.g. parental occupation, maternal education). Future research could consider using a wider range of real-world objective measures to explore whether there are unique effects of these measures on different outcomes. For example, few studies consider measures of wealth in relation to children’s understanding, judgements of responses to inequality in general. Instead, where measures of objective socioeconomic status are collected, studies rely on measures such as maternal education, area-level deprivation scores, or other income related measures.
Measures of wealth inequality at the national level are available but have not yet been integrated into moral development research in the same way that measures associated with income have been in adult studies. At the community or household level, studies asking parents about asset ownership, e.g. in the form of housing status, could also be a useful metric in service of this research agenda. Of course, such data could be difficult to collect. Children may not know about how much wealth they have, and parents may not want to disclose such information for fear of judgement or shame. Identifying sensitive but effective ways to collect such information without creating immense burdens for researchers should be considered.
Pro-social research and wider outcome measures
Many of the studies cited consider children’s evaluations of different resource allocations strategies or own decisions to distribute goods. These measures are highly informative, allowing for comparisons across conditions and age groups, but future research could consider a broader range of possible outcome measures relevant to building a fairer society. For example, the above studies consider inequalities between individuals or small groups. However, inequalities in society persist between individuals and larger, diffuse groups with whom we have no real contact, such as people in other communities, in other countries, or future generations. Considering how children and young people think about unequal distributions between closer, concrete groups (e.g. people in their community) and more distal, abstract groups (e.g. people in another country, the future) could help to explore these issues.
Considering channels of communication about inequality
Research by Mistry and Yassine (2022) and Lanteri et al. (2025) considered more explicitly how children and young people’s experiences of inequality influenced their beliefs about the issue. While Lanteri et al. (2025) also engaged with parents and their beliefs about inequality, future research could explore how parents and children discuss these concepts together. For example, Kinnard et al. (2025) explored how parents talked to their children about meritocracy, while MacLean et al. (2025) conducted a similar study on parents’ communication about racial and wealth inequality.
In light of concerns about children and young people’s increasing use of social media platforms from a young age, considering messages about economic inequality on these platforms could provide further insight into the development of children’s views about inequality relative to other sources. Similar work could be undertaken within academic environments, where children and young people’s peer-to-peer or teacher-child interactions could contribute to their developing understanding of inequality.
Engaging in more cross-cultural research
Unsurprisingly, many of the studies in the above review are based on American samples. This bias is not unique to this review: samples from Western Educated Industrialised Rich Democracies (WEIRD) make up a great deal of the research base in the social sciences. Conducting research with communities from non-WEIRD cultures, where the nature and experience of economic inequality itself may differ to that in the USA, is sorely needed to rebalance the inequities within the research base and its impacts on our understanding of this subject.
Relatedly, where research does take place in WEIRD contexts, more work is needed to engage children and young people from different backgrounds who experience multiple forms of disadvantage and tend to own less wealth compared to their counterparts, e.g. women, minority ethnic groups, and people with disabilities. Such research would provide more accurate and nuanced evidence about how young people and children understand and respond to inequalities.