Patterns of Child Material Deprivation Among 5 World Regions

Background/Purpose: About 385 million children around the world live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $1.90 per day with an even higher number of children facing material deprivation which is not considered extreme. Anti-child poverty programs have not always been successful in helping children get out of deprivation circumstances, and the degree of their effectiveness vary in different international contexts. One of the reasons for it might be in the way the elimination of child poverty is measured. Most of the anti-poverty program evaluations estimate the increase in disposable income without attention to how exactly these resources are benefiting children. Income can be used in multiple ways (ex. debt consolidation, medical bills) that would not benefit children directly and therefore do not impact their material well-being. In response to the challenges of income-based poverty measurement, material deprivation approach has been proposed as a complementary perspective that enriches our view on child poverty allows to reach more children who need assistance. Policy and programs designed with material deprivation approach in mind allow creating another kind of programs that would provide access to subsidized goods instead/in addition to the redistribution of liquid money or social transfers. Therefore, this study answers the following questions: (1) Do child material deprivation have different patterns across world regions? (2) If so, what characteristic these patterns of material deprivation have? (3) Do these patterns of material deprivation more likely to affect certain regions and groups of children?

Methods: This paper utilizes the data from the International Survey of Child Well-Being. This study focuses on the sample of  over 13000 12 years old from 12 countries grouped by the regions of the world. The analysis will be based on the items available in Child Material Deprivation Index. Latent class analysis and multinominal logistic regression will be utilized to explore the patterns of material deprivation.

Results: Findings suggest five patterns of child material deprivation including extreme, high, moderate transportation, modest housing/cell phone and no deprivation classes. Children who belong to the class with Housing and Mobile Deprivation are 21 times more likely (95% CI 15.7-28.7)  to come from MENA region compared with children in No/Minimal Deprivation class. Children who belong to Transportation Deprivation class are 5.5 times more likely (95% CI 4-7) to come from of the sampled countries in Eastern Europe than children in No/Minimal Deprivation class. Children from High Deprivation (digital deprivation) class were 76 times more likely to be from one of the sampled African country (95% CI 50-115) comparing with children in No/Minimal Deprivation class.

Conclusion/Implications: This study suggests that the distribution of resources to eliminate poverty should be based not only on income based resources but include an assessment based on perceived deprivation scales, especially for the children. Taking into account that certain regions have their distinct profile of child material deprivation, it is fair to suggest that implementation of programs/policies that match regional needs is advisable to fulfill children’s rights otherwise violated by the deprivation facet of poverty.