More than one in four parents of children aged 18 or under in Scotland have struggled to provide sufficient food for their children in the past 12 months due to the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
This grim finding has been revealed by Barnardo’s after the leading charity commissioned a Scotland-wide survey by pollsters YouGov*. This is a rise of 5% since October 2022 when parents were surveyed for Barnardo’s by YouGov, suggesting the impact of the cost-of-living crisis continues to hit families who are struggling to afford to keep the power on and the fridge stocked.
As well as 27% of Scottish parents of children aged 18 or under revealing to struggles with providing food for their children, 54% of the same group claimed that they had to reduce their spending on food costs to save money over the same period. Meanwhile, 7% of parents claim to having to use a food bank in the past year, as a direct result of cost-of-living challenges.