Seven Children: Inequality and Britain''s Next Generation

If we found seven typical 5-year-olds to represent todays UK, who would they be? What would their stories reveal?

Seven Children is about injustice and hope. Danny Dorlings highly original book constructs seven average children from millions of statisticseach child symbolising the very middle of a parental income bracket, from the poorest to the wealthiest. Dorlings seven were born in 2018, when the UK faced its worst inequality since the Great Depression and became Europes most socially divided nation. They turned 5 in 2023, amid a devastating cost-of-living crisis. Their country has Europes fastest-rising child poverty rates, and even the best-off of the seven is disadvantaged. Yet aspirations endure.

 Immersive, surprising and thought-provoking, Seven Children gets to the heart of post-pandemic Britains most pressing issues. What do we miss when we focus only on the superrich and the most deprived? What kinds of lives are British children living between the extremes? Why are most British parents on below-average income? Who are todays real middle class? And how can we reverse the trends leaving all children worse off than their parents?