Publication: Global Trends in Child Monetary Poverty According to International Poverty Lines
Loading...
Date
2023-09-19
ISSN
Published
2023-09-19
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper analyzes extreme child poverty ($2.15/day poverty line) trends, as well as child poverty based on the higher international poverty lines of $3.65 and $6.85. The paper provides a trajectory of extreme child poverty (children living in extremely poor households) from 2013 to 2019 (based on the most recent surveys included in the Global Monitoring Database), complemented by nowcasting for 2020 to 2022. Children continue to be disproportionately affected by extreme poverty. Children who are younger than 18 years comprise more than 50 percent of those living in extreme poverty, although their share of the population is 31 percent. The paper estimates that in 2019, 15.8 percent of children in the world (319 million) younger than 18 years lived on less than $2.15 (2017 purchasing power parity) per day, as opposed to 6.6 percent of adults ages 18 and older. More recent “nowcasted” estimates suggest that at least 333 million children were expected to be living in extremely poor households in 2022, implying that 14 million more children were extremely poor in 2022 than in 2019. Following an increase in extreme child poverty at the height of the pandemic in 2020, nowcasted estimates show that the rate of extreme child poverty fell again in 2021 and 2022, but only at the slow rate of progress seen prior to the COVID-19 crisis. If the COVID-19 pandemic had not occurred, an estimated 79.7 million fewer children would have been living in extreme poverty between 2013 and 2022; however, the estimates suggest that the number of children living in extreme poverty decreased by 49.2 million, due to pandemic disruptions.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Salmeron Gomez, Daylan; Engilbertsdottir, Solrun; Cuesta Leiva, Jose Antonio; Newhouse, David; Stewart, David. 2023. Global Trends in Child Monetary Poverty According to International Poverty Lines. Policy Research Working Paper; 10525. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40364 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Disentangling the Key Economic Channels through Which Infrastructure Affects Jobs(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-03)This paper takes stock of the literature on infrastructure and jobs published since the early 2000s, using a conceptual framework to identify the key channels through which different types of infrastructure impact jobs. Where relevant, it highlights the different approaches and findings in the cases of energy, digital, and transport infrastructure. Overall, the literature review provides strong evidence of infrastructure’s positive impact on employment, particularly for women. In the case of electricity, this impact arises from freeing time that would otherwise be spent on household tasks. Similarly, digital infrastructure, particularly mobile phone coverage, has demonstrated positive labor market effects, often driven by private sector investments rather than large public expenditures, which are typically required for other large-scale infrastructure projects. The evidence on structural transformation is also positive, with some notable exceptions, such as studies that find no significant impact on structural transformation in rural India in the cases of electricity and roads. Even with better market connections, remote areas may continue to lack economic opportunities, due to the absence of agglomeration economies and complementary inputs such as human capital. Accordingly, reducing transport costs alone may not be sufficient to drive economic transformation in rural areas. The spatial dimension of transformation is particularly relevant for transport, both internationally—by enhancing trade integration—and within countries, where economic development tends to drive firms and jobs toward urban centers, benefitting from economies scale and network effects. Turning to organizational transformation, evidence on skill bias in developing countries is more mixed than in developed countries and may vary considerably by context. Further research, especially on the possible reasons explaining the differences between developed and developing economies, is needed.Publication Economic Consequences of Trade and Global Value Chain Integration(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2025-04-04)This paper introduces a new approach to measuring Global Value Chains (GVC), crucial for informed policy-making. It features a tripartite classification (backward, forward, and two-sided) covering trade and production data. The findings indicate that traditional trade-based GVC metrics significantly underestimate global GVC activity, especially in sectors like services and upstream manufacturing, and overstate risks in early trade liberalization stages. Additionally, conventional backward-forward classifications over-estimate backward linkages. The paper further applies these measures empirically to assess how GVC participation mediates the impact of demand shocks on domestic output, highlighting both the exposure and stabilizing potential of GVC integration. These new measures are comprehensively available on the World Bank’s WITS Platform, providing a key resource for GVC analysis.Publication Participation in Pension Programs in Low- and Middle-Income Countries(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-24)Low- and middle-income countries are aging rapidly but stagnation of growth in participation in pension programs, due to widespread informal employment, presents a major fiscal challenge. Some claim that improving the design of pension program rules can encourage more pension contributions, while others push for universal non-contributory pensions. This paper reviews the recent academic literature on the determinants of active participation in pension systems in high- informality settings. An emerging body of evidence shows that participation responds significantly to financial incentives as well as nonfinancial obstacles. At the same time, pensions are imperfect substitutes for other strategies to cover longevity risk, including support through the family, which will remain crucial for many older people in fiscally constrained environments. Therefore, policy makers should integrate the design of contributory pensions, social pensions, and policies that facilitate other forms of elderly support and consider how all three interact. To inform such efforts, these interactions must be more systematically investigated, and the empirical evidence must be expanded beyond a small number of middle-income countries.Publication Capitalizing on Digital Transformation to Enhance the Effectiveness of Property Institutions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-14)Property registries have long been a pillar of state capacity and a basis for private market activity. While registry establishment and operation traditionally were costly and time consuming, digital technology makes low-cost registry operation and wide outreach easier. To guide developing countries aiming to establish such registries and measure progress, this paper develops indicators (in terms of digital coverage, interoperability, and property taxation for local service delivery and public land management) of effective digital registry service provision. Data from 85 countries highlight vast differences and provide suggestions for strategic reforms as well as a basis for measuring progress over time. Expanding geographical coverage and collecting these indicators on a regular basis could provide guidance to improve the way in which, by protecting property, the state creates the basis for widely shared prosperity and a livable environment.Publication Bridging the Gap(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-21)This paper examines tax revenue shortfalls in South Asian countries. On average during 2019–23, South Asian revenues totaled 18 percent of GDP—well below the average 24 percent among emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). Econometric estimates from stochastic frontier analysis, which control for tax rates and the size of potential tax bases, suggest that tax revenues in the region are 1 to 7 percentage points of GDP below potential, with shortfalls in five of the region’s eight countries larger than in the average EMDE. Even after controlling for country characteristics, such as widespread informal economic activity outside the tax net and large agriculture sectors, sizable tax gaps remain, suggesting the need for improved tax policy and administration. The paper discusses and provides evidence from international experience with reforms to raise government revenues.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Global Estimate of Children in Monetary Poverty(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-10)This note builds on previous collaboration between the World Bank Group and UNICEF to estimate the global extent of child poverty. We estimate that in 2017, 17.5 percent of children in the world (or 356 million) younger than 18 years lived on less than 1.90 Dollars PPP per day, as opposed to 7.9 percent of adults ages 18 and above. The poverty rate of children at the 3.20 Dollars and 5.50 Dollars lines were 41.5 and 66.7 percent, respectively. The number of children living in extreme poverty declined by approximately 29 million between 2013 and 2017. In 2017, Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for two thirds of extremely poor children, and South Asia another 18 percent. These estimates are based on the Global Monitoring Database (GMD) of household surveys compiled in Spring 2020 and consists of surveys from 149 countries that are also used for the official World Bank poverty estimates. Because the estimates pertain to 2017, they do not consider the adverse economic impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.Publication Pakistan Poverty Trends, Scenarios and Drivers(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-06-05)This policy paper examines recent poverty trends in Pakistan. Official statistics continue to indicate strong poverty reduction through 2010-11, thanks in large part to policies and investments that boosted productivity in the non-agricultural sector. Poverty fell a bit more than other countries with similar rates of growth, as growth was slightly pro-poor and also benefited the bottom 40 percent. Alternative indicators such as access to public services have also improved, though at a slower rate since 2008 the year of twin global and domestic crises that hardly hit Pakistan. While increased productivity among non-agricultural workers has been a key factor driving poverty reduction, cash transfers through the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) and workers' remittances from abroad also made moderate contributions. Simulations suggest that higher growth rates would further accelerate poverty reduction, but would have smaller effects on attaining other Millennium Development Goals. Despite this progress on poverty reductions, a major concern is that large numbers of people still remain concentrated just above the poverty line, thus remaining vulnerable to even small shocks, like natural disasters. Furthermore, the Pakistani economy has failed to create enough salaried and non-agricultural jobs, and female labor force participation remains unusually low by regional and worldwide standards. BISP cash transfers have helped reduce poverty and are well-targeted, but their coverage still is small; while remittances accrue mainly to non-poor households. If Pakistan can address these remaining constraints and also achieve more rapid growth, in particular with less frequent load-shedding and high levels of investment in human capital, the labor market has the potential to absorb new workers and further accelerate the improvement in living standards for the poor and near-poor.Publication The Political Economy of Multidimensional Child Poverty Measurement(Taylor and Francis, 2020-03-11)As part of the 2030 Agenda, much effort has been exerted in comparing multidimensional child poverty measures both technically and conceptually. Yet, few countries have adopted and used any of these measures in policymaking. This paper explores the reasons for this absence from a political economy perspective. It develops an innovative political economy framework for poverty measurement and a hypothesis whereby a country will only produce and use reliable and sustainable multidimensional child poverty (MDCP) measures if and only if three conditions coalesce: consensus, capacity and polity. We explore this framework with two relevant case studies, Mexico and Uganda. Both countries satisfy the capacity condition required to measure MDCP but only Mexico satisfies the other two conditions. Our proposed political economy framework is normatively relevant because it identifies the conditions that need to change across multiple contexts before the effective adoption and use of an MDCP measure becomes more likely.Publication New Global Estimates of Child Poverty and their Sensitivity to Alternative Equivalence Scales(Elsevier, 2017-08)This paper uses micro-data from household surveys from 89 countries to estimate the rate of extreme poverty among children in the developing world. 19.5% of children are estimated to live on less than $1.90 per day, as opposed to 9.2% of adults. Poverty rates for children remain above 17%, and are greater than adult poverty rates, for all reasonable two-parameter equivalence scales.Publication March 2020 PovcalNet Update(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-03)The March 2020 update to PovcalNet involves several changes to the data underlying the global poverty estimates. Some welfare aggregates have been changed for improved harmonization, and some of the CPI, national accounts, and population input data have been revised. This document explains these changes in detail and the reasoning behind them. In addition to the changes listed here, a large number of new country-years have been added, bringing the total number of surveys to more than 1,900.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Unlocking Africa's Agricultural Potential(Washington, DC, 2013-04)Transforming agriculture in Africa is not simply about helping Africa; it is essential for ensuring global food security. But Africa s agriculture is also of critical importance when it comes to meeting the world s future needs for food and fiber. With the global population expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050, food security producing enough food of sufficient quality and making it accessible and affordable for consumers around the world is one of the most important policy objectives .The United Nations estimates that global food demand will double by 2050, with much of that growth driven by developing countries. The world will then need to feed 2.3 billion more people, and given the deep transformation of growth trajectories in low-income countries, these populations will be increasingly affluent and will demand more, different, and better food. But how will the world meet this additional demand? Given Africa s productive potential, it must be a key contributor to feeding the world in the future. But to fully realize that potential will require overcoming many obstacles through innovative and transformative approaches.Publication Environmental Challenges for Green Growth and Poverty Reduction(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-01)The Environmental Challenges for Green Growth and Poverty Reduction in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic report reveals strong linkages among environmental quality, economic growth, and social wellbeing of the nation’s 7 million inhabitants. This report is a comprehensive presentation prepared after two years of targeted diagnostic research and analysis of issues and conditions within Lao PDR. The analysis was conducted by an international team of World Bank researchers in cooperation with counterparts in lead government agencies in Lao PDR. Information from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, and others, provided an initial basis for the assessments, and this was complemented by other international information. The results can be regarded as a state-of-the-art contribution of information to decision makers in Lao PDR having an interest in achieving sustainable growth consistent with the 2019 National Green Growth Strategy. The report’s scope includes consideration of impacts on key economic sectors and on risk factors influencing the health of the population. The assessments encompassed the economic costs of degradation in the forestry, agriculture, fisheries, mining, and hydropower sectors. The report identifies solid waste management and plastics as an important priority to which the Government of Lao PDR has already pledged its support in regional and global initiatives. Within the context of the Mekong River and its watershed, this report addresses climate-change impacts including increased risks of flooding.Publication Africa's ICT Infrastructure : Building on the Mobile Revolution(World Bank, 2011-06-23)Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been a remarkable success in Africa. Across the continent, the availability and quality of service have gone up and the cost has gone down. In just 10 years dating from the end of the 1990s mobile network coverage rose from 16 percent to 90 percent of the urban population; by 2009, rural coverage stood at just under 50 percent of the population. Although the performance of Africa's mobile networks over the past decade has been remarkable, the telecommunications sector in the rest of the world has also evolved rapidly. Many countries now regard broadband Internet as central to their long-term economic development strategies, and many companies realize that the use of ICT is the key to maintaining profitability. This book is about that challenge and others. Chapters two and three describe the recent history of the telecommunications market in Africa; they cover such issues as prices, access, the performance of the networks, and the regulatory reforms that have triggered much of the investment. This part of the book compares network performance across the region and tries to explain why some countries have moved so much more quickly than others in providing affordable telecommunications services. Chapter four explores the financial side of the telecommunications revolution in Africa and details how the massive investments have been financed and which companies have most influenced the sector. Chapter five deals with the future of the sector. The final chapter synthesizes the main chapters of the book and presents policy recommendations intended to drive the sector forward.Publication Addressing Food Loss and Waste(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-09-28)The report focuses on the role that food loss and waste (FLW) could play in reducing the environmental footprint of food systems while attempting to meet the caloric and nutrient needs of a population expected to increase by 3 billion people in the next 30 years. The performance of the global food system over the last century has been extraordinary. From a global population of 1.6 billion people in 1900 to nearly 8 billion in 2020, the agri-food sector has risen to the challenge of providing global caloric sufficiency, mainly by increasing yields of a few principal staple crops. However, this path is no longer sustainable.Publication Agriculture Productivity Growth in Brazil(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-09-24)The industrialization process in Brazil begun in the 1960s and intensified in the 1970s, however the expected productivity growth of the overall economy and structural transformation did not happen. Since the end of the 1970s, the Brazilian labor productivity has been lower than many similar economies, currently representing around one fourth of the average labor productivity in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. One of the reasons for the weak productivity performance of the Brazilian economy in the past decades has been the manufacturing sector. Between 2000-2013, agriculture productivity rose by 105.6 percent, compared to only 11.7 percent in the services sector and -5.5 percent in the manufacturing sector. This report will focus mainly on policies related to key production factors (such as human, physical, and natural capital) and agriculture policies. The motivation for this report is to explore the evolution and source of the strong agriculture productivity growth that has occurred in Brazil in recent decades, identifying opportunities and challenges for future development of the sector. The goal is to look for opportunities to accelerate agriculture productivity growth, to have an increased impact on sector growth, jobs, environmental sustainability, and poverty reduction, as well as potentially to shed light on lessons that can contribute to efforts to boost productivity in other sectors within Brazil. The report is divided into five sections. Section one give introduction; section two describes the evolution and sources of agriculture productivity growth in recent years; section three evaluates the contributions of different factors of production, such as natural, human, and physical capital; section four explores the opportunities for further maximizing agriculture growth in Brazil through increases in productivity; and section five presents conclusions and policy recommendations on how to further maximize agriculture productivity in Brazil while having positive social (poverty reduction and jobs) and environmental impacts.