Comparative Perspectives on Child poverty: a review of poverty measures

Howard White, Andrew Masters and Jennifer Leavy ()
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Andrew Masters: Institute of Development Studies

Development and Comp Systems from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Child poverty matters directly as children constitute a large share of the population and indirectly for future individual and national well- being. Developed country measures of child poverty are dominated by income-poverty, although health and education are often included. But these are not necessarily the most direct measures of the things that matter to children. Moreover, a broader range of factors than material well-being matter for child development; family and community play an important role. The conclusion is that social and psychological variables are an important component of child welfare. Can such a conclusion be extended to developing countries? It might be thought not, since the dictates of a focus on absolute poverty imply concern with fundamentals such as malnutrition, illiteracy and premature death and the things which cause these outcomes. But such a view is short-sighted. Child development concerns are at least as important in developing countries as developed ones (if less well understood). Hence approaches to child welfare in developing countries (both measurement and policy) should also adopt a broad-based approach which embraces diverse aspects of the quality of a child’s life, including child rights.

Keywords: Children; poverty measurement; child poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O P (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2005-04-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 36
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Comparative Perspectives on Child Poverty: A review of poverty measures (2003)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0504017

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