Are Poor Individuals Mainly Found in Poor Households? Evidence using Nutrition Data for Africa

Caitlin Brown, Martin Ravallion and Dominique van de Walle

No 24047, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Antipoverty policies assume that targeting poor households suffices in reaching poor individuals. We question this assumption. Our comprehensive assessment for sub-Saharan Africa reveals that undernourished women and children are spread widely across the household wealth and consumption distributions. Roughly three-quarters of underweight women and undernourished children are not found in the poorest 20% of households, and around half are not found in the poorest 40%. Countries with higher undernutrition tend to have higher shares of undernourished individuals in non-poor households. The results are consistent with intra-household inequality but other factors also appear to be at work including common health risks.

JEL-codes: I14 I32 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev and nep-ltv
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