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

live in Tafea. Poverty is deeper in Torba, but
Tafea appears to have a significant concentration
of poverty, due to its higher share of the total
population.
Port Vila moves from the bottom of the poverty
ranking to the top when the sub-national BNPL
is used. It appears that the poverty experienced
in Port Vila is related to its much higher cost of
living. Apart from location, the most important
factors associated with poverty are large
household size and low educational attainment.
The presence of young adults (15-24 years) also
increases poverty risks.
POVERTY MEASURED BY
DEPRIVATION
Methodology of UNICEF Global Child
Poverty Study
Although income- or expenditure-based poverty
measures focus on an important dimension of
well-being, they only give a partial picture of the
circumstances of disadvantaged families. Income,
for example, is a measure of the resources
available to households, while expenditures can
be thought of as what households achieve with
these resources. But in addition, it is important
to understand the circumstances of households
and the qualitative outcomes they achieve. For
example, two households may have similar
income levels, but one may have access to
electricity and running water while the other
may not. Considering evidence of deprivation
is a way of supplementing information on
household expenditure levels to provide a more
comprehensive account of household well-being,
and therefore of child well-being.
The Global Study adopts a child poverty concept
that builds on existing definitions and measures of
poverty, and considers:
• both income and non-income factors of the
caretakers or the household, and how these
determine whether or not a child enjoys her or his
right to survive, grow and develop
• how resource scarcity and deprivation directly
affect children, as well as how they are more
broadly experienced differently according to
gender, age and social status at the family,
household or country level
• childhood as a space that is separate from
adulthood (life-cycle approach)
• the likelihood that children who are deprived of a
safe and caring environment will also experience
other deprivations
As the Global Study points out, the first challenge
in discussing poverty is how to measure it. A
credible measure of poverty can be a powerful
instrument for focusing the attention of policy
makers on the living conditions of the poor. In the
same way, a credible measure of child poverty
can be a powerful instrument for focusing the
attention of policy makers on the rights and wellbeing
of children. So, for any stakeholder working
for children, the way to approach child poverty is
of utmost concern.
The Global Study also argues that children
experience all forms of poverty more acutely than
adults because of their vulnerability due to age
and dependency, and because lost opportunities
in childhood often cannot be regained later in life.
Considering this, UNICEF’s 2005 State of the
World’s Children sets out a working definition of
child poverty, which is inspired by the principles of
the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC),
focuses on the resources children need to survive
and grow: “Children living in poverty are deprived
of their rights to survival, health and nutrition,
education, participation, and protection from
harm, exploitation and discrimination. (…)Children
whose rights to safety and dignity are denied are
also impoverished. (…), preventing them from
achieving anything close to their full potential.”
(UNICEF, SOWC 2005, p2).
Here material resources include income, food,
access to education or health services, and
protection from health risks, such as those
associated with hard physical work. Spiritual
resources include stimuli, meaningfulness,
expectations, role models and peer relationships;
emotional resources include love, trust, feelings
of acceptance, inclusion, and absence of abuse.
There are obvious challenges to measuring these,
and few available indicators.
Box 2 summarizes three conceptual models for
understanding child poverty. Model A presents
the way much of the world sees child poverty –
as indistinguishable from overall poverty. This
approach starts with a macro view of poverty that
must be disaggregated (made more specific)
in order to reveal poverty at the community or
household level. This broad model may present
strategic opportunity for advocates of child rights,
since it already includes children (although in an
implicit or invisible manner) in this broad concept
of poverty. Disadvantaged children can benefit
from economic growth through two key channels:
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