Proceedings of the 45th International Academic Conference, London

A CRITIQUE OF THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF CHILD POVERTY

HANNAH DUNGA

Abstract:

Poverty measures have evolved over the years from the income-based poverty threshold to those that take into account non-income aspects of a person’s wellbeing, the popular one being the multidimensional poverty measure. In all these measures children have been taken for granted in terms of the unique nature and the multifaceted deprivations that may be associated with children and not adults. The employment of equivalence scales makes assumptions that go to the extent of looking at children in different contexts and households as being homogenous. A proper measure that takes into account individual idiosyncrasies may not be easy but the current measures that are being applied are to a greater extent underestimating the level of child poverty globally and specifically in developing countries. This paper is motivated by the understanding that there could be more poor children than we care but we are not able to count based on the existing measures of poverty. This paper presents a critique of the child poverty measures that exist and points out the fact that there is need to develop a dedicated and succinct measure of child poverty beyond the equivalence scales that relate child poverty to the household income poverty line.

Keywords: child poverty, measures, scale, household

DOI: 10.20472/IAC.2019.045.013

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