Global Study On Child Poverty And Disparities (PDF) - Social Policy ...

Each of these factors potentially affecting poverty
is discussed below.
Gender: The gender of household members
does not appear to be contributing significantly to
household poverty, with on average 13.0 per cent
of males and 13.3 per cent of females living in
poverty. The poverty gap for males and females is
also close to identical (4.6 per cent of the poverty
line and 4.7 per cent, respectively). However, this
reflects the fact that poverty is measured at the
household level, given the nature of the data, and
any differential use of goods and services within
each household is not observed.
Regarding the gender of the head of the
household, both poverty rates and poverty gaps
are higher for male-headed households than for
female-headed households. In part, this may
reflect the relatively small number and sample
size of female-headed households in Vanuatu.
Age: Households containing teenagers and those
containing people over 65 years of age tend to
have the highest poverty rates, while those with
members of prime working age (25 to 44 years)
have the lowest poverty rates. The poverty gap
is highest for those over 65 years of age. For the
same reason, households containing a person
over 70 years of age have higher poverty rates
than those with only younger members.
Household size and dependency: The number
of people in the household is highly correlated
with poverty and also with larger poverty gaps.
Very small households (with fewer than three
members) appear not to be poor at all, although
this probably reflects small sample sizes.
Households with seven or more members have
poverty rates that are nearly twice as high as the
overall average, and the poverty gap is also much
larger for these households. Households with high
dependency ratios – that is, four or more children
for each adult – have poverty rates that are twice
as high as those of all households with children;
however, the poverty gap for these households is
no higher than the overall average.
Education level of head of household:
Education appears to be strongly correlated with
poverty risks. Nineteen per cent of households
where the head has no schooling are in poverty,
compared to 5 per cent of those whose head
finished secondary school. The poverty gap is
also four times as high for those with no schooling
as for those with high school.
Ethnicity: Ni-Vanuatu have higher than
overall poverty rates; but due to the very small
representation of other ethnic groups in the
population (and therefore in the HIES sample),
there are no reliable Figures for other ethnic
groups.
Province: Provincial disparities shown in Table
2.2 are broadly similar to the results discussed
in previous sections, except that the results refer
to households with children and not children
themselves. Using the national level poverty line,
child poverty rates are highest in Torba and Tafea.
Poverty gaps are significantly wider in Torba,
however – more than twice the overall average.
This means that not only are there proportionally
more poor households with children in Torba, but
that they are further below the poverty line than in
other parts of the country.
Poverty risks
Table 2.3 compares the likelihood of experiencing
poverty of an individual or household with specific
characteristics, compared to that of an individual
or household without those characteristics. For
example, among households with children, for
those with a male in the household the poverty
rate is 99 per cent of that for those with no males
in the household. Households with a male under
14 years have a poverty rate that is 112 per cent
of those with no male children of this age.
These values are expressed as ‘odds ratios’: a
ratio of less than 1.0 means that this characteristic
could be regarded as a protective factor, reducing
poverty risks, and a ratio of over 1.0 means that
the characteristic increases poverty risks. The
Table shows these risks both for households with
children and for all households (with and without
children).
For households with children, risks of poverty are
heightened if there are older children (age 15 to
25 years) in the household, and if there are people
45 years and over in the household. Poverty risks
are much lower for small households, but greatly
increased for households with seven or more
people or with a high dependency ratio. As noted
previously, education is an important factor – the
presence of someone with secondary education is
the strongest protective factor, even stronger than
small household size. The strongest risk factor
is large household size, which is considerably
stronger than low levels of education. Among
all households, the absence of women is also a
strong risk factor.
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