Hardship and activities at home: the baby years

The first year of a baby’s life is a period of rapid learning and development, setting foundations for the future. In this analysis, we show how babies’ experiences differ according to the poverties and material hardships experienced by their parents.  

While the vast majority of parents engage in some key nurturing behaviours, regardless of hardships, other behaviours vary. Particularly, we evidence a pronounced link between experiencing hardships – debt, material deprivation and/or food poverty – and reading activities.  

This link holds regardless of parents’ education level, indicating that, even among highly educated families, poverty and hardship may impact learning and development. In fact, the link between experiencing hardships and reading is most pronounced for parents with postgraduate-level qualifications.   

Parenting, poverty and hardship in the infant years 

Parents’ interactions and activities with their infants are crucial to experiences and development in the earliest years. But the resources available to and constraints and hardships faced by parents influence the extent to which they can create a stimulating ‘home learning environment,’ and nurture their baby’s growth.   

Previous research with older children has shown that poverty and hardship are key factors impacting some parenting behaviours. This is via material circumstances creating stress and mental ill-health. It is also via poverty and hardships preventing parents from affording and accessing experiences and resources.  

Poverty is directly related to children’s outcomes, including educational attainment, cognitive and social-behavioural development, and health. Poverty is of particular interest because it – and the hardships and deprivations that result from it – is preventable by policymakers.  

In 2025, the government’s abolition of the ‘two child limit,’ imposed in 2017, demonstrated how policy can directly create and mitigate poverty. While in place, the limit pushed ‘child poverty to record highs,’ while its cessation is ‘expected to reduce child poverty by 450,000 by the end of the parliament’ – though there is still much to be done to address poverty and hardship amongst young families. 

Data: Children of the 2020s 

We use newly released data from the Children of the 2020s study to focus on relationships between hardship and parenting activities. Information was collected from parents when babies were around nine months old.  

Over 8,000 families took part in Children of the 2020s. They were selected to be representative of the population in England in late 2022. Study questions span financial and material hardships, home life, play, activities with the new baby, and numerous others. 

Experiences of hardships 

We concentrate on parents’ answers to three main questions capturing experiences of debt, material deprivation, and food poverty:  

1. ‘In the last six months have you [/and your partner] been keeping up with bills and any regular debt repayments?’  
2. ‘Do you ever feel that you cannot afford to buy essential baby items, like nappies and baby clothes, as often as you would like?’ 
3. ‘Since your child was born, have you (or other adults in your household) ever cut the size of your meals or skipped meals because there wasn’t enough money for food?’ 

Figure 1 shows that thirteen per cent of parents said they were not keeping up with bills and/or debts; eleven per cent that they could not afford to buy essential baby items; and eight percent that they had cut or skipped meals. Twenty-five per cent reported experiencing at least one of these hardships.  

The vast majority of parents report some key nurturing behaviours

The good news is that despite nearly a quarter reporting at least one of these hardships, the vast majority of parents (98 per cent) report playing with toys with their baby on a daily basis. There is little difference according to experiences of hardship. Similarly, with little variation, the vast majority (again 98 per cent) report cuddling their baby daily. Most parents report singing daily to their baby (88 per cent), and again there is little difference according to whether they report experiencing hardships.  

But for other behaviours, hardship is associated with fewer positive interactions

Parents reporting hardships are less likely to play physically with their baby on a daily basis, though differences are relatively small. For example, 85 per cent of parents who have cut or skipped meals play in this way, compared to 88% of those who have not. While the majority of parents report talking daily to their baby, the percent doing so is lower among those struggling to pay bills or debts (97 per cent vs 94 per cent). 

Parents reporting any of the hardships are less likely to engage in pretend play with their baby compared to those reporting none (79 per cent vs 84 per cent). Parents not keeping up with bills or debts are less likely to play turn-taking games compared to those not reporting debt (85 per cent vs 91 per cent).  

Parents reporting not being able to afford baby essentials are less likely to report noisy play – including with instruments – with their baby (74 per cent vs 79 per cent). There is a similar pattern for reports of trips outside (e.g. to a park) with the baby. 71 per cent of parents unable to afford baby essentials report this takes place daily, compared to 78 per cent who do not struggle to afford essentials. 

Hardship, books and reading  

Reading is a key skill. Early reading activities are important to development and feed into later skills. 

We find differences according to whether parents experience each and every one of the hardships in both: 

• whether they read their baby stories, and 

• whether they look at pictures in books with their baby. 

In Figure 2 we show how tendencies to read daily to their baby differ according to parents’ education level and their experience of hardship. Parents with a higher level of education are, on average, more likely to read daily. 

But when they experience hardships, all parents, regardless of education level, are less likely.  

In fact, the hardship gap is most pronounced among the most educated parents – those with qualifications at level 5 or above (postgraduate study).

Figure notes: The percentage of parents experiencing any of the three financial hardship in each group is: None/level 1=32%; Level 2=33%; Level 3=25%; Level 4=22%; Level 5=18%. Details on how education levels are measured can be found here: Level 1 is equivalent to NVQ 1; Level 2, to GCSEs or NVQ level 2; Level 3, to A levels or NVQ level 3; Level 4, to an undergraduate degree or NVQ level 4/5; Level 5 to a postgraduate degree or professional qualification. 

Figure 3 shows patterns for parents looking daily at pictures in books with their baby. While overall, parents are more likely to engage in this activity than in reading, the same patterns by education and hardship hold. When parents experience hardships, they are less likely to look at books with their baby every day. Again, this gap is more pronounced among the most educated parents. 

Analytical checks

We also check whether patterns hold when we use a measure of family income rather than the questions about specific hardships – they do. We check whether they hold when we control for:  

• babies’ exact age at survey interview, 

• parents’ age,  

• babies’ reported ethnicity, 

• number of siblings in the household, 

• number of parents in the household. 

Lastly, we check what happens when we limit the sample to mothers only (92 per cent of respondents). Consistently we find that parents who experience any of the hardships are less likely to engage in looking at books and reading to their baby, across education levels. 

Mitigating hardships should improve babies’ early experiences and development

The child poverty strategy, published in late 2025, took a first step towards recognising and alleviating the hardships experienced by many families with babies and young children. But a year later, the budget of October 2026 provided only ‘a relatively small ‘breathing space’ package, so there is still far to go. 

As the child poverty strategy laid out, there has been a steep increase in poverty over the past decade-and-a-half, and further actions are still needed to redress the hardships experienced as a result. The child poverty rate is highest among under-5s, with particularly damaging consequences.

Our analyses show that whether parents are in debt, experience material deprivation, and/or are in food poverty is strongly related to their parenting behaviours. Even maternal education – a strong predictor of parenting, literacy, and child outcomes – does not seem to alleviate the apparent detrimental effects of these hardships.  

Ensuring that families are free from these deprivations is therefore a continued imperative: because as a society we should ensure an adequate home environment for our youngest citizens; because supporting this environment will alleviate pressure on and allow space within other early childhood services; and because, in the long run, the skills developed in babyhood will pay off – personally, socially and economically.     

Suggested citation

Campbell, T. and Cooper, K. (2026). Hardship and activities at home: the baby years. https://eyo.epi.org.uk/2026/11/05/hardship-and-activities-at-home-the-baby-years/ (accessed [date]).