Facts on child poverty — Global Coalition to End Child Poverty

Child Poverty facts

What is child poverty?

Poverty broadly refers to “pronounced deprivation in well-being”, and is most widely measured in monetary terms, that is households having insufficient income to purchase the minimum goods and services they need to survive and thrive. Children are considered poor if they’re living in households whose consumption falls short of this threshold. This threshold differs in each country, depending on the standard of living, prices of goods, and other factors. In lower- and middle-income countries, absolute poverty lines are commonly used, while in richer countries, poverty is usually defined relatively, in comparison to the economic status of other members of the society. The World Bank sets the international extreme poverty line at 2011 PPP $1.90 per person per day, and has higher poverty lines at 2011 PPP $3.20 and $5.50, for lower-middle and upper-middle-income countries.

But poverty is about more than income to purchase goods and services, poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon and manifests itself in poor nutrition, poor health, poor education and limited capability to maintain livelihoods or participate in society. For children, the multidimensional aspects of poverty are especially important as deprivation in early life puts them at a disadvantage throughout their life affecting their health and capacities, increases vulnerability to exploitation and abuse and limits future prospects, which further harms communities and societies. For instance, children from the poorest households are twice as likely to die before reaching age 5, compared to their richer peers. Child poverty can also alter the trajectory of societies and economies. In Guatemala, children who received early nutrition interventions were likely to earn much higher wages compared to those who didn’t, indicating the potential of multidimensional child poverty reduction to drive long term economic growth.

Recognizing this, in 2007 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a definition of child poverty as the following:

“Children living in poverty are deprived of nutrition, water and sanitation facilities, access to basic health-care services, shelter, education, participation and protection, and that while a severe lack of goods and services hurts every human being, it is most threatening and harmful to children, leaving them unable to enjoy their rights, to reach their full potential and to participate as full members of the society”.

How is child poverty measured?

Measurement provides critical information about the nature of child poverty, its extent and depth, and helps monitor the impact of existing anti-poverty interventions. Child poverty can be measured using monetary and multidimensional approaches, and both measurements are required under SDG monitoring.

Monetary child poverty measurement: Monetary measures (measured based on household income or consumption) count children as poor if they’re living in households below a set poverty line.
Multidimensional child poverty measurement: Multidimensional measures can provide a fuller picture of poverty as they capture non-income aspects of poverty such as malnutrition, ill health and poor living conditions faced by children. Children are considered to be living in poverty if they’re deprived in critical areas such as nutrition, education, health and housing.

What’s the difference between absolute poverty, relative poverty, and multidimensional poverty?

Absolute monetary poverty defines people as poor if they live below the minimum income threshold required to meet basic calorie intake and other non-food good. It is measured relative to a fixed standard of living; that is, a constant income threshold or consumption level, allowing comparative or trend analysis across different points in time.
Relative poverty, on the other hand, defines people as poor if their resources are so seriously below those commanded by the average individual or family that they are, in effect, excluded from ordinary living patterns, customs or activities. Relative poverty is usually measured using disposable household income below a certain percentage, typically 50% or 60%, of the median income of that country (after adjusting for household size and composition). It is measured relative to the median-income living standards in a particular society and varies both across time and between societies. This measurement takes into consideration the cost of participating in everyday life. For example, plumbing is a necessity in some places; without plumbing, a person could be considered impoverished. But, in other places plumbing is a luxury.
Multidimensional poverty acknowledges that poverty is not only reflected through income, but also the deprivation of access to basic resources, such as clean drinking water, child nourishment, and basic education. There are multiple prominent approaches to measuring multidimensional poverty, including the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), the Multidimensional Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) which are anchored in an absolute approach (through absolute deprivation and multidimensional poverty cutoffs) and the Bristol approach.

What’s the difference between international poverty lines and national poverty lines?

A poverty line, also called a poverty threshold, is the line below which it is difficult, if not impossible, to afford basic needs, which is either determined by a country, based on costs of basic needs and income, or calculated through international standards.

National poverty lines are either absolute poverty lines calculated as the minimum income required to meet basic calorie intake and other non-food goods or relative poverty lines, defined in reference to the overall distribution of a country’s income or consumption. Relative poverty lines frequently define people as poor if their household income is below a certain percentage of the median income of that country, and they are commonly used in higher-income countries.
The international poverty line – an absolute poverty line – (for example, the extreme poverty line of $1.90 per day per person) is set by the World Bank, with reference to the national poverty lines in some of the poorest countries, to measure the population living in extreme poverty. As differences in the cost of living across the world evolve, the global poverty line has to be periodically updated to reflect these changes. Since the first estimation in 1990 that formed the dollar-a-day poverty line, the value was updated.

Similarly, there are international and national versions of multidimensional poverty measures. For instance, the global MPI applies a uniform structure to allow for comparability across countries, whereas national and regional measures define their structure according to deprivations considered to be most relevant to their context. Similarly, the N-MODA is a tailored version of the MODA approach, adopting country specific definitions of deprivation and providing more in-depth analysis appropriate for the country context.

How many children are living in poverty?

333 million children are living in extreme poverty (as of 2022), struggling to survive on less than PPP $2.15 per day. Children are disproportionately impacted – they make up more than half of the global poor, despite constituting only 31% of the total global population.
829 million children are living below the higher threshold of PPP $3.65, and 1.43 billion under the PPP $6.85 line.
1 billion children are estimated to be multidimensionally poor (as of 2019), meaning that they suffer at least one severe deprivation in the areas of health, housing, nutrition, sanitation or water. COVID-19 pushed approximately 100 million additional children into multidimensional poverty.
Half of the 1.1 billion people living in multidimensionally poor households globally – or 566 million – are children, according to the global MPI (as of 2023).
Child poverty is not only a phenomenon in lower- and middle-income countries. In the EU, 24 % of children are living at risk of poverty and social exclusion (as of 2021).
Across OECD countries, nearly 1 in 7 children are income poor (as of 2018).

Check out this table for a quick overview of all these estimations based on various approaches.

What is the progress on child poverty?

The joint analysis conducted by the World Bank Group and UNICEF suggest a reduction in the extreme child poverty rate from 20.7 per cent to 15.9 per cent between 2013 and 2022.
This implies that 49.2 million fewer children live in extreme poverty compared to 2013, however, this is about 30 million less than projected in the absence of COVID-19-related disruptions.
In the 20-year period between 2000 and early 2020, multidimensional child poverty (experiencing at least one severe deprivation) fell in developing countries from around 70% to 45%.

Which places have high child poverty prevalence?

Sub-Saharan Africa has both the highest rates of children living in extreme poverty at 40 percent and the largest share of the world’s extreme poor children, at 71.1 percent.
South Asia has the second-highest share of children living in extreme poverty, accounting for 18.6 percent of the world’s extremely poor children.
Child poverty is more prevalent in countries prone to conflict. About 38.6 percent of children who live in fragile and conflict-affected countries live in extremely poor households, compared to 10.1 percent of children in other countries.
Yet, as mentioned above, no region or country is immune to child poverty. Many rich nations also face a high percentage of children living in relative poverty and/or children at-risk of poverty and social exclusion.

How can we address child poverty effectively?

While there are many important nuances in what caused poverty in different countries and communities, there are also common threads that apply universally. Each country will take context-specific measures, but common indicative milestones on a pathway to address child poverty are:

Building a national pathway to end child poverty
Measuring poverty
Putting child poverty on the map
Reducing child poverty through policy/programme change
Achieving SDGs end extreme child poverty

Policies and programmes to address child poverty, at their core, will:

Address multidimensional child poverty through providing quality and accessible services for the most deprived children – including in areas such as nutrition, education and health
Address income or monetary child poverty through supporting families and households to have a minimum income and ensure financial barriers don’t prevent children from reaching their potential.

Approaches that are proven to be effective include:

Build national support by ensuring that reducing child poverty is an explicit national priority.
Expand child-sensitivity in social protection systems and programmes.
Improve access to quality public services, especially for the poorest children.
Promote a decent work and inclusive growth agenda to reach families and children in poverty.

What are the Sustainable Development Goals, and how do they address child poverty?

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries in a global partnership. Goal 1 focuses on reducing poverty in all its forms everywhere, which includes children in its targets and indicators.

Target 1.2 focuses on reducing at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions, with indicators such as the proportion of the population living below the national poverty line disaggregated by age.
Target 1.3 asks countries to track the percentage of the population covered by social protection floors/systems, distinguishing children.

This global mandate requires member states to report on progress on reducing the poverty of children and creates an opportunity for stakeholders engaged in the fight against child poverty to engage in national processes to achieve this goal.

For the first time, there is an explicit commitment that all countries measure all dimensions of child poverty and strengthen policies and programs, including child-sensitive social protection, to meet the child poverty reduction goal by 2030. Therefore, the SDGs offer a tremendous opportunity for countries to take action and respond to child poverty. The Global Coalition to End Child Poverty have produced a comprehensive guide that collects experiences and approaches from around the world to support policymakers, practitioners and advocates, as they work towards achieving the SDG child poverty targets.

What are countries doing to achieve the SDG targets on child poverty?

The SDG Agenda provides a clear framework for action: Countries must eradicate extreme child poverty by 2030 and halve the number of children living in poverty in all its forms according to national definitions. One way to gauge progress on SDG implementation is to survey the data and the narrative content that countries present in their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs). The Coalition assessed VNRs from a child poverty perspective, looking at how countries mention and discuss their efforts to end child poverty, through measurement and policies:

Monetary Child Poverty: SDG indicator 1.2.1 specifies the reporting of the proportion of the population living below the national poverty line, and this should be disaggregated by age, recognizing children as a distinct category. In 2020, while all 45 reviews discussed poverty eradication, only 11 reviews explicitly point out the monetary poverty rate for children, compared to 17 out of 46 in 2019.
Multidimensional Child Poverty: Income alone is not sufficient to assess the multiple and overlapping deprivations children face in their daily lives, affecting, for example, their health, education, and living standards. 9 out of 45 countries reported multidimensional poverty data on children in 2020, corresponding with the SDG target 1.2.2 – “reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women, and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions”.
Policies and programmes to address child poverty: SDG targets 1.3 and 1.4 highlight the importance of social protection systems and floors and improved access of the poor to essential public services. In 2020, among the 45 countries who submitted their VNRs, 33 mentioned their efforts to tackle child poverty through various policy and sector-specific actions.

How is the Global Coalition helping to end child poverty?

Co-convened by UNICEF and Save the Children, the Global Coalition to End Child Poverty is initiated by a group of organisations with a common interest and focus on child poverty. The coalition’s work focuses on raising awareness about children living in poverty across the world and supporting global and national action to alleviate it.

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