Measuring Child Poverty

This post is meant to accompany slide #4 entitled "Measuring Child Poverty" from my presentation that I gave to the volunteers helping me with my project. The presentation can be found in a post below. I will update this blog with detailed information about the others slides as well.

The many dimensions of poverty are difficult to encompass within a single unit of measurement. The dimensions we discuss are mortality, morbidity, hunger, sickness, illiteracy, homelessness, and powerlessness.

We now look at seven aspects of severe deprivation as they affect children in developing countries: adequate food; safe drinking water; decent sanitation facilities; health; shelter; education; and information.

Over 1 billion children suffer from at least one form of severe deprivation, and 700 million children suffer two or more deprivations. The disadvantages overlap and reinforce one another.

For example, a lack of sanitation pollutes the water that children use and poor nutrition makes them vulnerable to sickness and diarrhea which, if untreated, can further reduce children’s body weight and resistance to disease.

Children who are poorly fed, frequently ill or live in crowded homes with no electricity or access to the media, are likely to encounter more problems in school.

A child severely deprived of shelter, living in an overcrowded home and an impoverished neighborhood may not be able to absorb an education even if there is a school nearby.

Check out a page of a report from UNICEF:
(also found here, page 19)