Commit to Kids: The Role of Deservingness in Shaping Advocacy
In political and societal deliberations over “who should get what, and why,” heuristics or cues often guide our attitudes and behaviors. Notions of “deservingness” and “social legitimacy” play a significant role in shaping support or opposition to social welfare policies.[1]
Political scientist Michael Bang Petersen has found that individuals often evaluate the “character of the recipients” to inform their political decisions rather than on the benefits or shortcomings of the programs themselves.[2] The “deservingness” heuristic often casts social welfare recipients as the “target object” on which political attitudes are formed. Consequently, economically disadvantaged people are judged on perceived traits, such as “laziness” or “hard work,” assigning them into categories of deserving or undeserving of support.
Other factors, including political partisanship, ideology, social identity, and cultural factors play significant roles, but “deservingness” is often the dominant lens through which people think about the allocation of benefits and penalties in political actions and policy decisions. Fortunately, children are typically viewed by the public as highly “deserving” and worthy of support – a perception that advocates for children and families must recognize and harness.
Advocates sometimes fail to understand this and wrongly misinterpret political inaction on behalf of children as a lack of concern or sign of apathy toward children’s well-being. That is a mistake.
Instead, barriers to political action are more likely due to the reality that politicians are often driven by money and votes, which children do not possess. At times, a lack of awareness about how public policy impacts child well-being or framing that focuses on adults (e.g., health care providers, educators, child care workers, etc.), or the system (e.g., juvenile justice, child welfare, schools, etc.) and relegate children to the periphery.
In an analysis of media coverage of children’s issues by FrameWorks Institute, the researchers find the media is often parent-centric. Their report highlights:
…the focus on parents leaves children in the background. Media coverage in which children are invisible undermines collective concern about children themselves. In addition, people are more likely to apply judgments of deservingness to parents than children — to think that parents may not deserve support because they have, people think, made bad choices that have led to their situation. In these ways, parent-focused framing could potentially undercut support for policies that provide benefits to families.[3]
When children are ignored or treated as an afterthought, such framing undoubtedly enables the application of “deservingness” judgments to parents rather than children and erodes support for child and family policies.
According to political scientists Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram’s “social construction theory,” children are perceived as high in deservingness and low in power.[4] This is backed by research from Rebecca Kreitzer and Candis Watts Smith, where “children” were rated second highest among 73 different categories in terms of “deservingness” (just behind “veterans” but ahead of the “elderly,” “disabled,” and “soldiers”). The study also confirms that children rank low in terms of perceptions of political power.[5]
This distinction is crucial and should not be confused or conflated by child and family advocates. For instance, in advocating for more education funding, the focus should be on the needs and concerns of students (higher on deservingness) while leveraging the political influence of parents and teachers to actualize change.
In other words, the voices of and advocacy for children are important (as they have been in many of the social change movements over our nation’s history[6]), but they are significant because they raise awareness and steer the conversation toward the impact of public policy on the lives and well-being of rather than on political power, which they lack.[7]
Greater investments in social programs often hinge on the perceived deservingness of target beneficiaries. Saied Toossi’s study demonstrates that recasting or reframing a program like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to highlight children as beneficiaries rather than adults boosts public support with “large effects” across political lines[8] and reaffirms the view of children as highly deserving.
In contrast, adults are often entangled in a web of judgments related to work, racial prejudices, stereotypes, and other factors, that complicate their perceived deservingness. This was highlighted in a 2021 New York Times article by reporter Jason DeParle, in which Kathryn Goodwin expressed conflicting feelings about the Child Tax Credit, appreciating the lifeline it provided her but critical of her ex-boyfriend eligibility.
On the one hand, she said:
Without that help, I literally don’t know how I would have survived. I would have been homeless.” [9]
Yes, concerning her ex-boyfriend, she saw him as undeserving of the Child Tax Credit, arguing:
All this free money enabled him to be a worse addict that he already was. Why should taxpayers pay for that?”[10]
Public opinion on the Child Tax Credit mirrors this split perception. Support is higher when the policy is framed as aiding children or as benefitting an “in-group” of parents, but declines when the policy is associated with questions related to work or perceived as aiding an “out-group” of parents. The public tends to favor lifting children out of poverty over adults, whom they are more likely to judge for their socioeconomic circumstances.[11]
Furthermore, research suggests that the vulnerability of children leads the public to be more prosocial in their charitable giving, showing greater empathy and sympathy towards children than other groups. One study found that survey participants became more generous in their support of a charitable organization when attention was drawn to children, even if that focus was unrelated to the work of the charitable organization’s work.[12] The mere implicit priming of children generated a favorable response by those in the study.
In essence, children’s narratives in the public conscience differ markedly from those of other populations, such as adults or parents. Factors and results include:
Inherent Innocence: Unlike adults, children are not seen as responsible for their socioeconomic status, making them more sympathetic beneficiaries of public assistance. Children evoke empathy rather than negative judgments of deservingness and can neutralize common critiques aimed at adults related to issues such as work.
Higher Deservingness Rankings: Consequently, studies show that children consistently rank higher on deservingness measures than almost all other populations.
Return on Investment: Research shows that investments in children, particularly among the youngest and most disadvantaged kids, have the highest return on investment than on all other target populations and that the public understands this and believes it to be an important factor in deservingness perceptions.[13]
The Luntz Experience
This was observed by Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who after conducting a series of focus groups for First Focus on Children, noted the untapped potential in child advocacy messaging. While he noted that groups like AARP and environmental organizations effectively were leveraging children in their communications, child and family advocates often overlooked this impactful strategy. Luntz observed that without prompting, the public does not readily link public policy with child welfare issues. Yet, when the connection is made, people express intense concern for child well-being and a pressing and intense urgency for policymakers to act.
As Luntz remarked after the emotional reaction that was evoked when participants focused on children’s needs, “Child advocates may have the greatest scratch and sniff issue of all time!” Once participants made the connection between public policy and child well-being, Luntz said that a child and family agenda could be a winning issue.
Overcoming Challenges to Political Action
According to John Kingdon’s “multiple stream framework” for political action, a “window of opportunity” can open when awareness of a problem, agreement to a policy solution, and political will converge to provide a limited and temporary opportunity to advance change.[14] Yet, even such a pathway is littered with challenges.
For instance, the “parent bubble” can pose a significant challenge for child and family advocates striving to enact societal and governmental policy changes. Unfortunately, the public often thinks exclusively about the role of parents in child well-being and fails to recognize the critical connection to public policy change. Advocates must, therefore, reframe issues to highlight children to help the public better understand the role that societal and governmental policy solutions have on their lives. This is less likely to occur if children are an afterthought or the focus is on adults and parents.
Unfortunately, some coalitions, even those aimed at helping children, can be dominated by adult-centric agendas and messaging. Advocates must ensure children’s needs, concerns, and best interests are central – and not sidelined or treated as an afterthought – to avoid perpetuating their marginalization and invisibility in policy debates.
Furthermore, policy debates do not occur in a vacuum. Opponents of policy improvements for children and families often seek to raise questions about the deservingness and work ethic of parents, promote racial and anti-immigrant animosity, and even spread myths or falsehoods about policies and their beneficiaries. In attempting to counter these narratives, child and family advocates can inadvertently reinforce opposition frames by repeating them (e.g., the “death panels” myth associated with Obamacare). This reinforcement of the opposition’s issue frames can create a “backfire effect”[15] and have the unintended effect of marginalizing children to the periphery of the policy debate.
For example, countering the opposition’s argument that a more refundable Child Tax Credit reduces parental work by engaging in “myth-busting” can unwittingly shift the framing of the debate in the opposition’s favor. If the debate becomes “to what extent does an expanded Child Tax Credit reduce work,” opponents will have succeeded in framing the debate on their terms.[16] Those seeking to reduce child poverty would be better served by focusing on the affirmative benefits of cutting child poverty and the negative consequences to children, families, and society by failing to improve the Child Tax Credit.
Furthermore, focusing the debate on children is a “strategic choice,” according to Baldwin Van Gorp and Bart Vyncke, that has “clear positive associations” and “helps circumvent the perception that poverty is the result of one’s own actions and that one is responsible.”[17] Just about every aspect of the lives of children is improved by lifting children out of poverty and that is an agenda that the public overwhelmingly support. In fact, by an 86-12% margin, a Lake Research Partners poll found that voters were concerned that child poverty costs our society up to $1.1 trillion a year due to higher crime, poor health outcomes, and lower income levels when children living in poverty grow up.”[18]
Flipping and Leveraging ‘Deservingness’ for Positive Gains
Opponents of improving social policy for children and families understand the potency of framing issues around “deservingness.” It’s past time for child and family advocates to harness this understanding as well.
For decades, opponents have seized the narrative and promoted an austerity agenda that has successfully stigmatized low-income populations, eliminated social welfare programs, and eroded public investments in children and families by focusing on “dependency” and “personal responsibility.” Our objective should be to transform the political landscape and terms of the debate to center it on the well-being of children and families.
Although kids may lack political power, they possess a “superpower” – the public’s favorable view of them with respect to “deservingness.”
By shining a light on the needs and concerns of children, we are not dimming the spotlight on families. Instead, we are ensuring that the entire picture is complete. For too long, children have been left in the shadows of policy debates. This approach is complementary to broader family advocacy and recognizes that investing in children also benefits families and our collective future.
As we stand at this critical crossroads, let’s choose to advocate for a society that sees the flourishing of every child as worthy of our attention and commitment. The question is not about whether we can afford to invest in children but whether we can afford not to. The political and societal changes we fight for today – investing in education, health care, early childhood, child care, nutrition, housing, child abuse prevention, and cutting child poverty – lay the groundwork for a stronger, more compassionate, equitable, and prosperous future.
If you would like to help change the narrative and ensure that children and their needs, concerns, and best interests are no longer ignored by policymakers, please join First Focus Campaign for Children as an “Ambassador for Children” or become a paid subscriber to help us continue our work. We do not have dedicated financial support for this work and rely on readers like yourself to support it. Thank you for your consideration.
ENDNOTES
[1] Van Oorschot, W. (2000). Who Should Get What, and Why? On Deservingness Criteria and the Conditionality of Solidarity among the Public. Policy and Politics, Studies of local government and its services, 28(1), 33-48; Van Oorshot, W., Roosma, F., Meuleman, B. & Reeskens, T. (2017). The Social Legitimacy of Targeted Welfare: Attitudes to Welfare Deservingness. Elgar; Petersen, M. B. (2021). The Evolutionary Approach to Political Psychology. In a chapter prepared for the Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology.
[2] Petersen, M. B. (2015). Evolutionary Political Psychology: On the Origin and Structure of Heuristics and Biases in Politics. Advances in Political Psychology. 36:Suppl. 1, 45-78. Petersen argues the deservingness heuristic “reduces the complexity of deciding on welfare policies by focusing people’s attention not on the (potentially complex) policies and programs themselves but rather on the moral character of the recipients.”
[3] Hestres, L. E., Rochman, A., Busso, D., & Volmert, A. (2021, Nov.). How Are Children’s Issues Portrayed in the Media? A Media Content Analysis. FrameWorks Institute.
[4] Schneider, A., & Ingram, H. (1993, Jun.). Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy. American Political Science Review, 87(2), 334-347.
[5] Kreitzer, R. J., & Smith, C. W. (2018). Reproducible and Replicable: An Empirical Assessment of the Social Construction of Politically Relevant Target Groups. PS: Political Science and Politics, 51(4), 768-774.
[6] See, for example, Clark, A. (2024, Apr. 16). The Children’s Crusade: When the Youth of Birmingham Marched for Justice. Retrieved from the History Channel. https://www.history.com/news/childrens-crusade-birmingham-civil-rights.
[7] Kreitzer, R. J., & Smith, C. W. (2018).
[8] Toossi, S. (2022). Think of the Children? The Effect of Children on Support for Welfare. Public Opinion Quarterly, 86(1), 176-190. The author concludes that “highlighting the child beneficiaries of SNAP can boost public support for the program overall and across politically influential constituencies with traditionally low and high levels of support for welfare.”
[9] DeParle, J. (2021, Jul. 28). Pandemic Aid Programs Spur a Record Drop in Poverty. Retrieved from New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/us/politics/covid-poverty-aid-programs.html
[10] Ibid.
[11] First Focus on Children. (2022, May). Fact Sheet: Voters Strongly Support Investments in Our Children and Grandchildren. Retrieved from First Focus on Children: https://firstfocus.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/FACT-SHEET_LakePoll-May2022.pdf; Brown, P. T. (2023, Feb.). Five Pro-Family Priorities for the 118th Congress and Beyond: Policies and Public Opinion on Putting Families First. Retrieved from Institute for Family Studies: https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/resources/reports/ifs-congress-familypriorities-final.pdf. For example, respectively, by a 72-21% margin (+51%), the public supported extending the 2021 Child Tax Credit when the framing was about children, but support dropped dramatically when the framing was about adults and work (56-44% support, or +12%).
[12] Wolf, L. J., Thorne, S., Iosifyan, M., Foad, C., Taylor, S., Costin, V., . . . Maio, G. (2021, Apr. 16). The Salience of Children Creates Adult Prosocial Values. Social Psychology and Personality Science, 13(1), 160-169.
[13] Heuer, J.-O., & Zimmerman, K. (2020). Unraveling deservingness: Which criteria do people use to judge the relative deservingness of welfare target groups? A vignette-based focus group study. Journal of European Social Policy, 30(4), 389-403. This study found that participants in focus groups identified “social investment” and a “future return on investment” as salient issues when thinking about investing in families with young children. The authors argued it should be added as another dimension to van Oorschot’s deservingness criteria and is a particularly strong frame when it comes to making investments in children.
[14] Kingdon, J. W. (1993). How Do Issues Get on Public Policy Agendas? In W. J. Wilson, Sociology and the Public Agenda (pp. 40-50). SAGE Publications.
[15] Nyhan, B. (2020, Summer); Nyhan, B., Porter, E., Reifler, J., & Wood, T. J. (2020). Taking Fact-Checks Literally But Not Seriously? The Effect of Journalistic Fact-Checking on Factual Beliefs and Candidate Favorability. Political Behavior, 42, 939-960; Ecker, U. K., Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J., Schmid, P., Fazio, L. K., Brashier, N., . . . Amazeen, M. A. (2022). The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction. Nature Reviews, 1, 13-29.
[16] See, for example, Hodge, S. A. (2022, Nov. 28). The Child Tax Credit Is a Failed Experiment. Retrieved from Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-child-tax-credit-is-a-failed-experiment-expansion-refundable-workforce-handout-pandemic-liability-revenue-social-service-irs-11669645688.
[17] Van Gorp, B., & Vyncke, B. (2021). Deproblematization as an Enrichment of Framing Theory: Enhancing the Effectiveness of an Awareness-Raising Campaign on Child Poverty. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 15(5), 425-439. As they write, “…putting the child at the center of the debate on poverty is a form of counter-framing. It can break through the social representation of poor people as responsible for their own social position.”
[18] First Focus on Children. (2022, May).