An increasingly widely used term in recent decades, the central place of ‘life chances’ in UK policy has been confirmed by the retrospective renaming of the Life Chances Act 2010 (formerly the Child Poverty Act 2010). Alongside this, the notion that we should promote fairer life chances has gained purchase across the political spectrum. Yet this notion is loose and ill-defined. This article unpacks the term from the point of view of children. It highlights problems involved with defining and measuring fair life chances for children in suitably broad and non-partial ways, and argues for a plural measure. It outlines two separate dimensions where questions of fairness might apply, in terms of the life course, showing how a suitably supple conception of fair life chances would need to apply across both dimensions. And in light of this account, it suggests three policy approaches – to poverty, childcare, and the configuration of opportunities – which would help establish a society where life chances were really fair: not sufficient, but vital contributions. Overall, the article suggests that a commitment to making life chances fairer requires considerably more radical steps than the term’s recent handling in political discourse would imply.
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