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GLOBAL STUDY ON CHILD POVERTY & DISPARITIES Poverty and Children This section examines child poverty and deprivation in Vanuatu using data from the 2006 HIES and the 2007 MICS. The first part of the section describes a range of measures of poverty in order to show the sensitivity of results to the measure of poverty used. First, the paper discusses the extent of poverty measured by economic resources – namely expenditure. The poverty estimates are based on the national poverty line for Vanuatu developed by the Asian Development Bank, the UNDP and the Vanuatu National Statistics Office (2008). In addition, the section analyses the proportion of children living in households with incomes below the international dollar-a-day poverty line and a range of relative poverty lines based on percentages of median household expenditure. It assesses the characteristics of households with children in poverty according to the differing measures used, calculating poverty headcount rates and poverty gaps by the gender and age of household members, household composition, location and a range of other indicators. The second part of the section presents an analysis of deprivation, which includes measures of shelter, sanitation, access to safe drinking water, information, food, education and health. The analysis of deprivation also assesses its relationship with household characteristics including size, composition, location and characteristics of parents. POVERTY MEASURED BY ECONOMIC RESOURCES The expenditure approach to measuring poverty Poverty research needs to take two steps: poverty must first be defined and then measured. One broad definition of poverty is that it exists when people do not have an adequate level of economic resources to obtain and sustain an acceptable standard of living. This definition can be thought of as embodying the income or expenditure approach. In this approach, poverty is generally measured by social surveys that compare household income or expenditures (adjusted for household need using an equivalence scale) with a poverty line. 32
The 2006 HIES provides the basis for the analysis of child poverty in this section. This survey estimated the cash value of ‘home production’ at the household level, which is included in all of the expenditure (consumptionbased) poverty line calculations in the Tables below. In poorer countries – including PICs – home production is important. Households often have limited cash incomes and low consumption expenditure; but with access to farming or fishing, they may be able to produce most of what they need to consume. Household income provides only an indirect measure of economic resources, since households may have savings or other forms of wealth that they can draw on to finance consumption. Child poverty is estimated in this section using three main measures of poverty: • a national measure, the Food and Basic Needs Poverty Lines, in two variants – poverty lines set at the national average level, and oth ers specific to different locations in Vanuatu • the international dollar-a-day poverty line – the value used in goal 1 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) • relative poverty lines (using various percentiles of median equivalised household expenditure) The reason for using a range of poverty indicators is to develop a more robust analysis of the poverty challenges facing Vanuatu. In a sense, the use of alternative measures is a way of triangulating poverty findings. By using multiple methodologies, the similarities and differences of the results can be seen as validating common findings, but also as a reminder that some conclusions are dependent on the specific methodology used. Vanuatu national poverty lines: Food and basic needs The incidence of poverty estimated using the national Basic Needs Poverty Line (BNPL) is a measure of hardship experienced by the poorest households in the country and the main geographic areas. This poverty line was estimated in a separate study undertaken by the Vanuatu National Statistics Office, the Asian Development Bank and the UNDP (2008). It is estimated from the cost of a minimally nutritious, low-cost diet that delivers approximately 2,100 kilocalories per day to provide a basic diet for an average adult male. This is the minimum food-energy intake recommended by the Food and Agricultural Organisation and the World Health Organisation and is referred to as the Food Poverty Line (FPL). To this is added an amount for essential non-food expenditure (such as housing, transport, education, clothing and utilities) that is required to provide an overall basic-needs standard of living. The next stage is to adjust the poverty line to reflect the different needs of households with different numbers of adults and children; larger households will obviously need to consume more than smaller households, but there may be economies of scale for certain consumption items. This process of adjusting for different household needs is known as ‘equivalising’ (see box 2 for further discussion). Households whose per capita adult equivalent expenditure is below the BNPL are deemed to be living in poverty. 33
Page 3 and 4: © United Nations Children’s Fund
Page 5 and 6: Public budgets.....................
Page 7 and 8: References.........................
Page 9 and 10: Tables Table 1.1: Composite vulnera
Page 11 and 12: Acknowledgements Contributions to e
Page 13 and 14: GLOBAL STUDY ON CHILD POVERTY & DIS
Page 15 and 16: on aspects of child well-being in V
Page 17 and 18: people, settlers, and ‘lazy’ pe
Page 19 and 20: Table 1.1: Composite vulnerability
Page 21 and 22: that Vanuatu has one of the highest
Page 23 and 24: Vatu Millions shown in Figure 1.5,
Page 25 and 26: Figure 1.7: Population growth rate
Page 27 and 28: and expanding business opportunitie
Page 29 and 30: Public spending on other social pol
Page 31: proposals. This contribution focuse
Page 35 and 36: To estimate the cost of the FPL in
Page 37 and 38: 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Millennium De
Page 39 and 40: Table 2.2: Correlates of expenditur
Page 41 and 42: Table 2.3: Probability of experienc
Page 43 and 44: employment opportunities for their
Page 45 and 46: Box 3: Child deprivation measures T
Page 47 and 48: The province that is arguably the w
Page 49 and 50: At least one severe deprivation At
Page 51 and 52: Table 2.6: Child poverty as multipl
Page 55 and 56: Table 3.1: Child nutrition outcomes
Page 57 and 58: Malaria is the major public health
Page 59 and 60: Table 3.3: Home management of diarr
Page 61 and 62: HIV/AIDS HIV/AIDS is a recent conce
Page 63 and 64: The Act also states that it is base
Page 65 and 66: Early marriage may be encouraged fo
Page 67 and 68: Male Female Total Background charac
Page 71 and 72: Education trends are more positive,
Page 73 and 74: Overall, Malampa performs best of a
Page 75 and 76: has significant problems with child
Page 77 and 78: NZAID, 2008, ‘Launch of NZ’s Pa
Page 79 and 80: Table A1.3: Children under the nati
Page 81 and 82: % N Family vulnerability Orphan chi
Page 83 and 84:
Odds of no deprivation Odds of at l
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Table A1.11: HIV testing and counse
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Birth is registered? (%) Birth is n
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Annex 2. Policies Table A2.1: Natio
Page 91 and 92:
Document that sets out goals and st
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Page 95:
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