Children Disproportionately Affected by Extreme Poverty

Established by the United Nations in 1992, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is observed annually on October 17. It serves as a reminder of the struggles faced by those living in poverty and emphasizes the importance of collective action in addressing inequality, social exclusion and other deprivations associated with or caused by monetary poverty. These include unsafe housing, lack of nutritious food and limited access to health care, among others.

According to a joint paper published by the World Bank Group and UNICEF, children are not only most vulnerable to but also disproportionately affected by extreme poverty, as Covid-19 was a major setback in the global fight against child poverty. According to the latest estimates, 15.8 percent of children aged 0 to 17 worldwide lived in extreme poverty in 2022. That’s equivalent to 333.5 million children living on less than $2.15 per person per day (based on 2017 PPP), which is the latest definition of extreme poverty following a revision of international poverty lines in 2022.

As our chart shows, children are more than twice as likely to be affected by extreme poverty than adults, with the poverty rate among adults estimated at 6.4 percent in 2022. Not only does that mean that more than half of all people living in extreme monetary poverty are now children (52.4 percent) but also that the gap is actually widening. In 2013, poverty rates for children and adults stood at 20.7 and 9.9, percent, respectively. Back then, children accounted for “just” 47 percent of the extremely poor.

The paper estimates that three years of progress in the fight against child poverty were lost du to the pandemic, which is the equivalent of 30 million more children living in extreme poverty in 2022 compared to a No-Covid scenario.