Qualitative research in child poverty/deprivation analysis

Qualitative research provides additional valuable information and comprehension to data collected through quantitative methods, it can reveal hidden problems that quantitative research may not expose. The benefits of qualitative research stem from its ability to reach greater depths of understanding by capturing children‘s feelings, attitudes and perspectives on various aspects of their lives and the political-economic contexts that shape their experiences of poverty. Although the Global Study on Child Poverty and Disparities guide strongly encourages countries undertaking child poverty/deprivation analysis to complement their statistical analysis with qualitative research, it does not provide guidance regarding how to conduct such research. This has been left to the country teams to decide upon.

Click here for an overview of how the Global Study country teams have provided extremely innovative and insightful ways for conducting qualitative research, to complement their statistical analysis of child poverty/deprivation

Sharpening the equity focus: selected innovations and lessons learned 2009-2010

The latest UNICEF External compendium Sharpening the equity focus: Selected innovations and lessons learned from UNICEF-assisted programmes 2009 - 2010 highlights how advocacy work around child poverty and disparities in China led to the incorporation of child poverty as a major issue to address in the 10 year National Rural Poverty Reduction Strategy for 2011-2020. This experience highlights a top-down and bottom-up approach to policy making, where both efforts reinforce each other. UNICEF continues further strengthening of national institutions to ensure successful implementation of the new rural poverty reduction policies.

To read more on the China case and for the full compendium click here

New Global Study Country & Regional Reports

The Global Study on Child Poverty & Disparities is fast progressing with 25 final country reports and 2 regional reports.

The East Asia and the Pacific Study on Child Poverty is the second regional report to be completed.

This study is the first measurement of multidimensional child poverty at the regional level in East Asia and the Pacific. It is based on seven countries in the region: Cambodia, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Philippines, Thailand, Vanuatu and Viet Nam. The study results show that, of the 93 million children who live in these seven countries, approximately 54% experience poverty, as measured by deprivation of basic needs. In 2006, approximately 36% of children suffered severe deprivation in at least one of the seven dimensions identified as relevant for child poverty (food, water, shelter, sanitation, health, education and information) and approximately 14% suffered from severe deprivation in multiple dimensions. In the group of countries with the highest rates of child poverty (Cambodia, Lao PDR and Mongolia), approximately 83% of children were severely deprived in at least one dimension.

This study also highlights existing disparities within countries in the region. For example, in Viet Nam, children from ethnic minority groups are 11 times more likely to suffer from multiple severe deprivations than children from ethnic majority groups – an unfortunate pattern found in many other countries. Child poverty was 30 per cent higher in rural Cambodia than in urban areas, 60 per cent higher in rural Thailand and 130 per cent higher in rural Philippines.

To access the full report and other by-products, advocacy related materials, press releases and more please click here.


Additionally, 2 new Global Study country reports have been finalized:

Nepal   (English)

   
Nepal, with an annual GDP per capita income of US$367, is one of the poorest countries in the world. Two thirds of Nepal’s children are  severely deprived and just under forty per cent live in absolute poverty. Children from large households, illiterate families, disadvantaged  and Dalit households are likely to be the poorest. Additionally, child poverty is three times higher in rural households than in urban  households. Two in every five children experience severe deprivation of at least two basic human needs. Deprivations of food and  sanitation services occur most frequently, followed by deprivations of water and information services. Malnutrition is a severe problem; with half of Nepal’s children under the age of five stunted and over two thirds underweight. Measured by the absence of a toilet of any kind, over half of Nepal’s children (55.7% or 6.4 million) defecate in open spaces with obvious implications for the spread of diseases. Nepal has one  of the highest early childhood mortality rates in the region. Leading causes of child mortality includes diarrhoea, acute respiratory infection,  and malaria. A large proportion of Nepal’s children have inadequate access to schooling and 10% of children do not attend school at all. 

To access the full report and other by-products, advocacy related materials, press releases and more please click here.

Mozambique (English and Portuguese)

The 2010 Study on Child Poverty and Disparities in Mozambique provides an opportunity to take stock of the progress made towards the realisation of the rights of the country’s ten million children since the 2006 Childhood Poverty Study: A Situation and Trends Analysis, and to assess the immense challenges that remain for the coming years. According to the 2008/2009 Household Budget Survey, 55 per cent of Mozambicans are living below the national poverty line of 18.4 Meticais ($US 0.50) per day. Using a deprivations-based approach the proportion of children living in absolute poverty in Mozambique fell from 59 per cent in 2003 to 48 per cent in 2008. Significant disparities exist in relation to provincial deprivations-based poverty rates. The proportion of children experiencing two or more severe deprivations was highest in Zambezia province in both 2003 and 2008 (80 and 64 per cent respectively). Maputo City has the lowest levels of absolute child poverty, with only 4 per cent of children experiencing two or more severe deprivations.

To access the full report and other by-products, advocacy related materials, press releases and more please click here

To read all the final reports, click here.

Latest Publications & Research on Child Poverty

There are a number of publications and peer-reviewed research papers on global child poverty published in the last few months.

Poverty and Gender Inequalities: Evidence from Young Lives

(Pells, K. Young Lives Policy Brief, Number 3; September 2011.)

Analysis of Young Lives data offers a more nuanced picture of gender dynamics than that which is often presented in international policy debates, showing inequalities affecting both boys and girls at different ages through intra-household dynamics, sociocultural context and economic pressures.

To download click here

Snakes and Ladders, Buffers and Passports: Rethinking Poverty, Vulnerability and Wellbeing 

(Sumner, A. and Mallett, R; IPC-IG Working Paper #83; August 2011.)

Much research to date has tended to view vulnerability by discipline or sector, yet individuals and households experience multiple, interacting and sometimes compound vulnerabilities. Cross-disciplinary thinking is emerging as multi-dimensional vulnerability is likely to become an increasingly important concept if the outlook over the next 15 to 25 years is one of multiple, interacting and compound stressors and crises, a result of the “perfect-s torm” or “long-crisis” thesis of the interaction of demographics, climate change and food and energy prices. A realigned analytical lens is thus useful to bring together the various intellectual strands involved in multi-dimensional vulnerability analysis. In light of the above, this paper reviews the literature on vulnerability and asks what a “three-dimensional human wellbeing” approach—a complement to more traditional ways of understanding poverty—might contribute to the analysis of vulnerability.

To download click here.

Multidimensional Indices of Achievements and Poverty: What Do We Gain and What Do We Lose? 

(Lustig, N.; Center for Global Development Working Paper #262; August 2011)  


Poverty and well-being are multidimensional. Nobody questions that deprivations and achievements go beyond income. There is, however, sharp disagreement on whether the various dimensions of poverty and well-being can be aggregated into a single, multidimensional index in a meaningful way. Is aggregating dimensions of poverty and well-being useful? Is it sensible? Here CGD non-resident fellow Nora Lustig summarizes and contrasts three key papers that respond to these questions in strikingly different  ways. At the bottom of the discussion is a fundamental disagreement on the “legitimacy” of the weights used to aggregate dimensions of well-being. Future research will need to focus on how to identify weights in ways that are consistent 1) with welfare economics and 2) with theories of justice. Will we have to choose between the two?

To download click here.

Macroeconomic Policy for Growth and Poverty Reduction: An Application to Post-Conflict and Resource-Rich Countries

(Hailu, D. and Weeks, J; United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) Working Paper #108, ST/ESA/2011/DWP/108; July 2011)

A fundamental shift in macroeconomic policy thinking is taking place. This shift opens a space for implementing policies that promote growth and reduce poverty in developing countries. In this paper, policies for post-conflict and resource-rich economies are outlined. Fiscal policy would focus on revenue mobilization, scaling-up public investment, and preventing over-heating. Monetary policies would revive the financial sector, prevent inflationary pressures and stimulate private sector investment. Exchange rate policies should focus on achieving slow depreciation and maintaining international competitiveness. These policies should not be considered in isolation from each other, but in coordination.

 

To download click here.

                              

Two Trends in Global Poverty

(Gertz, G. and Chandy, L; Global Economy and Development at Brookings; May 2011)

We are living through a period of rapid global poverty reduction. According to recent estimates, high, sustained growth across most of the developing world allowed nearly half a billion people to escape $1.25-a-day poverty between 2005 and 2010. Never before have so many people been lifted out of poverty over such a brief period. While the overall prevalence of poverty is in retreat, the global poverty landscape is changing. This transformation is captured by two distinct trends: poor people are increasingly found in middle-income countries and in fragile states. Both trends and their intersection present important new questions for how the  international community tackles global poverty reduction.

To download click here.

Child Poverty Insights 17 - Children in Urban Poverty: Can They Get More than Small Change?

In this issue of the Child Poverty Insights, Sheridan Bartlett from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) highlights the plight of children living in urban poverty. It’s widely recognized that the world is more than half urban, less widely acknowledged is the catastrophic extent of urban poverty or its implications for hundreds of millions of children.  We are used to thinking of urban children as being better off than rural children in every way – better fed, better educated, with better access to health care and a better chance of succeeding in life.  For many children, this is true.  But for growing numbers, the so called “urban advantage” is a myth. Children growing up in urban poverty often remain invisible, not only uncounted but frequently unreached by any basic services: living without secure tenure; heavily exposed to toxics and pollutants; among the groups most at risk from disasters and the direct and indirect impacts of climate change; and, confined to small overcrowded homes with little opportunity for exploration or physical activity. It is crucial that policymakers understand that poverty reduction approaches developed to tackle rural poverty will not necessarily work in urban settings, as the nature of urban poverty is different from that of rural poverty.

All previous issues of Insights can be found here.