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Innocenti Working Papers
The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre (IRC) was created to strengthen UNICEF's research capability and to support its advocacy for children worldwide. The Working Papers (formerly Innocenti Occasional Papers), are the foundation of the Centre's research output, underpinning many of the Centre's other publications. These high quality research papers are aimed at an academic and well-informed audience, contributing to ongoing discussion on a wide range of child-related issues.
1 - 100 of 194 Результаты
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How Listening Develops and Affects Well-being Throughout Childhood
Дата публикации: апреля 2022Больше МеньшеThis review study was a first attempt to map the existing theoretical and empirical literature about a possible core capacity for well-being: listening. The main research question was: drawing from a multidisciplinary evidence base, what is the empirical and theoretical knowledge of children’s listening and how does it interact with overall well-being throughout childhood? Moreover, the review of the literature will contribute to the understanding of listening as a core capacity for well-being within the Learning for Well-Being framework. The review included systematic searches in four electronic databases and a selection of studies based on pre-set criteria. It focuses on the development of listening throughout childhood, listening in formal and informal learning, listening in family and community settings, and possible links between listening and well-being. Relevant empirical studies were identified that further explain the development of listening comprehension throughout childhood. Relevant streams of literature identified included listening to music and positive effects on child well-being, children’s extensive listening in schools, and the effects of undesirable listening environments. Overall, in combination with the mapping papers on the eight other core capacities, this paper can contribute to the understanding of core capacities possibly benefiting child well-being.
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How Observing Develops and Affects Well-being Throughout Childhood
Дата публикации: апреля 2022Больше МеньшеThe purpose of this study is to map the empirical and theoretical evidence of children’s ability for ‘observing’ or ‘noticing’ as a core capacity for life within the Learning for Well-Being Foundation’s (L4WB) theoretical framework, and how it interacts with overall child development (ages 0–18).1More specifically, this review aims to contribute to existing knowledge in three ways: (i) it adds to the evidence of ‘observing’ as a core capacity for children from a childhood development perspective, (ii) it assesses the interaction of ‘observing’ with other core capacities and with overall child well-being, and (iii) it looks at the development of ‘observing’ as a core capacity among significant adults in children’s lives (e.g., teachers, educators, parents). Although the available evidence is limited, results show a significant link between children’s levels of observation or attention and cognitive skills in general, such as working memory and executive attention. Studies tended to focus on the middle-childhood age range, and with the exception of ‘inquiry’, are not linked to other core capacities. No studies were found that assessed the levels or application of ‘observing’ among significant adults.
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How Reflecting Develops and Affects Well-being Throughout Childhood
Дата публикации: апреля 2022Больше МеньшеReflecting, or thinking about one’s own thinking, is understood by the Learning for Well-Being Foundation as one of the possible core capacities which may influence well-being in children. This study explores the academic literature for theoretical and empirical evidence in support of this conceptualization. Drawing from a multidisciplinary evidence base, what is the empirical and theoretical evidence of children’s reflecting and how does it interact with overall well-being throughout childhood? The objectives of the review are to map the evidence of the development of reflecting in children, describe possible gaps in the literature and search whether any studies explore reflecting as a core capacity, or study the relationship between reflecting and child well-being. In doing so this paper focuses on the possibly diverse development of the core capacity in children, on the capacity in parents, teachers and other caregivers and the role they play in the development of the core capacity, and on the evidence from the academic literature.
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How Relaxing Develops and Affects Well-being Throughout Childhood
Дата публикации: апреля 2022Больше МеньшеThe purpose of this study is to map the empirical and theoretical evidence of children’s ability for ‘relaxing’ as a core capacity for life within the Learning for Well-Being Foundation’s (L4WB) theoretical framework, and how it interacts with overall child development (ages 0–18). More specifically, this review aims to contribute to existing knowledge in three ways: (i) it adds to the evidence of relaxing as a core capacity for children from a childhood development perspective, (ii) it assesses the interaction of relaxing with other core capacities and with overall child well-being, and (iii) it looks at the development of relaxing as a core capacity among significant adults in children’s lives (e.g., teachers, educators, parents) who are involved in their care and their skills development. Although the available evidence is limited, results show that ‘relaxing’ (and its related proxy concepts of mindfulness, meditation, contemplative science) can be helpfully considered a core capacity according to some aspects of L4WB definition: i) it can be developed through training and practice; ii) it can impact positively on children’s life through the reinforcement of cognitive, personal and interpersonal skills (e.g., improvements in executive functioning and empathy); and iii) it enables children to cope effectively with stress by improving their well-being.
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COVID-19: Effects of School Closures on Foundational Skills and Promising Practices for Monitoring and Mitigating Learning Loss
Дата публикации: мая 2021Больше МеньшеWhile remote learning measures are essential for mitigating the short-term and long-term consequences of COVID-19 (coronavirus) school closures, little is known about their impact on and effectiveness for learning. This working paper contributes to filling this gap by: 1. Exploring how disrupted schooling may affect foundational learning skills, using data from MICS6 (Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys - round 6) in 2017–2019; 2. Examining how countries are delivering and monitoring remote learning based on data from the UNESCO-UNICEF-World Bank’s National Education Responses to COVID-19 School Closures survey; and 3. Presenting promising key practices for the effective delivery and monitoring of remote learning.
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Social Benefits and the Feedback Effect of Child Poverty in European Countries
Дата публикации: мая 2021Больше МеньшеThis paper examines how social benefits contributed to reducing the scarring effects of monetary poverty among children in European countries in the years following the Great Recession. Based on the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions database, our findings highlight that social benefit functions differ in their ability to reduce the risk of monetary poverty for children with previous experience in poverty. While family/children’s benefits are crucial in reducing child poverty in general, they are not significant in terms of reducing the scarring effects of child poverty. Old age/ survivors’ benefits meanwhile appear to be a significant support for children with prior experience in poverty. Empirical evidence thus suggests the effectiveness of social transfers to combat occasional child poverty does not always coincide with their effectiveness in preventing children from remaining in poverty year after year.
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The Impact of Community Violence on Educational Outcomes: A Review of the Literature
Авторы): UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Cirenia Chávez and Marcela AguilarДата публикации: мая 2021Больше МеньшеIn recent decades, violence in and around schools has become a serious concern in Latin America and the Caribbean. This is not a new or isolated phenomenon, nor is it limited to certain schools or countries. While much of the literature connecting violence and schools has focused on bullying, it has overlooked how violence in other environments, in families and in communities, affects children’s education and their learning outcomes. Latin America and the Caribbean is home to 9 out of the 10 countries with the highest rates of violence in the world. Yet, the prevalence of bullying in schools is one of the lowest in comparison to other regions, suggesting that this is not the most concerning form of violence impacting children’s educational experiences. This literature review summarizes existing evidence on the impacts of community violence on academic achievement as well as on other educational outcomes – including dropping out, absenteeism, truancy, enrolment and attendance – and highlights policy and research implications.
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Social Protection and Its Effects on Gender Equality: A Literature Review
Авторы): UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre and Elena CamillettiДата публикации: мая 2021Больше МеньшеThis paper provides an overview of the latest evidence on the effects of social protection on gender equality. It starts by considering how risks and vulnerabilities are gendered, and the implications of their gendered nature for boys’ and girls’, and men’s and women’s well-being throughout the life course. It then reviews and discusses the evidence on the design features of four types of social protection programmes – non-contributory programmes, contributory programmes, labour market programmes, and social care services – and their effects on gender equality, unpacking which design features matter the most to achieve gender equality. Finally, the paper concludes with implications for a future research agenda on gender and social protection.
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School-Related Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean: Building an Evidence Base for Stronger Schools
Дата публикации: мая 2021Больше МеньшеThe prevalence of school-related violence and, in particular, bullying is not a new or isolated phenomenon, nor is it limited to certain schools or countries. Abundant evidence indicates that bullying is widespread and has a negative impact on educational outcomes. Children who are victims of bullying can also be affected emotionally and physically in both the short and long terms. Evidence from low- and middle-income countries on bullying is less extensive when compared to the evidence available on predictors and effects of bullying from high-income countries. However, some findings for the Latin American and Caribbean region seem to suggest a similar picture, with a high prevalence of bullying victimization and association to lower reading scores in different subjects tested. This working paper first uses data from UNESCO’s Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study for nationally representative samples of sixth grade students to determine the prevalence of bullying and its association to learning outcomes in 15 countries of the LAC region. It then looks at interventions to mitigate the impacts of violence.
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Encryption, Privacy and Children’s Right to Protection from Harm
Дата публикации: мая 2021Больше МеньшеThis working paper provides a short overview of the challenges and opportunities related to child protection and the use of encryption technology. While it does not constitute the UNICEF organizational position on the topic, it is meant to inform UNICEF on the issue and to reach and engage professionals, including nonexperts, within and between the child rights and privacy rights sectors. This paper will provide an overview of the debate around encryption and its possible impact on children’s right to protection from harm. It also reflects on the pros and cons of some proposed solutions.
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COVID-19: Missing More Than a Classroom
Дата публикации: мая 2021Больше МеньшеIn 2019, 135 million people in 55 countries were in food crises or worse, and 2 billion people did not have regular access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food. COVID-19 (coronavirus) has exacerbated these hardships and may result in an additional 121 million people facing acute food insecurity by the end of 2020. Further, since the beginning of the pandemic, an estimated 1.6 billion learners in 199 countries worldwide were affected by school closures, with nearly 370 million children not receiving a school meal in 150 countries. The paper presents the evidence on the potential negative short-term and long-term effects of school meal scheme disruption during Covid-19 globally. It shows how vulnerable the children participating in these schemes are, how coping and mitigation measures are often only short-term solutions, and how prioritizing school re-opening is critical. For instance, it highlights how girls are at greater risk of not being in school or of being taken out of school early, which may lead to poor nutrition and health for themselves and their children. However, well-designed school feeding programmes have been shown to enable catch-up from early growth failure and other negative shocks. As such, once schools re-open, school meal schemes can help address the deprivation that children have experienced during the closures and provide an incentive for parents to send and keep their children, especially girls, in school.
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COVID-19: Trends, Promising Practices and Gaps in Remote Learning for Pre-Primary Education
Дата публикации: декабря 2020Больше МеньшеThis paper examines the remote learning options that countries around the world have made available for pre-primary students and their families while schools are closed during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. It highlights trends, gaps and emerging good practices that are supported by existing evidence.
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How Effective are Cash Transfers in Mitigating Shocks for Vulnerable Children? Evidence on the Impact of the Lesotho Child Grant Programme on Multidimensional Deprivation
Авторы): UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Alessandro Carraro and Lucia FerroneДата публикации: ноября 2020Больше МеньшеShocks can pressure families into negative coping strategies with significant drawbacks for children’s lives and development, particularly for children living in disadvantaged households who are at greater risk of falling into a poverty trap. This paper investigates if unconditional cash transfers can be effective in protecting children against unexpected negative life events. Using two waves of data, we found that the Lesotho Child Grant Programme reduced the incidence and intensity of multidimensional deprivation for children living in labour-constrained female-headed households that experienced negative economic or demographic shocks. Programme design in shock-prone contexts should seek to reinforce and widen the protective effect of the cash transfer for the most vulnerable.
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COVID-19: A Reason to Double Down on Investments in Pre-primary Education
Дата публикации: октября 2020Больше МеньшеThis paper summarizes the recent UNICEF analysis on investing in early childhood education in developing countries. It provides a benefit-cost analysis of investments in pre-primary education in 109 developing low- and middle-income countries and territories, using data from 2008 to 2019. The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and related school closures exacerbate the risk of children missing out on both learning and future earnings. Investing in ECE and strengthening pre-primary education systems is needed to achieve progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, decrease inequalities and drive economic growth. It is now more critical than ever that ECE be prioritized by increasing domestic budgets and international aid and improving the efficiency with which ECE programmes are delivered.
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Gender-Responsive Age-Sensitive Social Protection
Дата публикации: сентября 2020Больше МеньшеThis working paper provides a concise narrative behind the graphic representation of the Gender-Responsive Age-Sensitive Social Protection (GRASSP) conceptual framework. The framework delineates the conceptual linkages between gender (including gender risks, vulnerabilities, discrimination and inequalities, multidimensional deprivations affecting women and girls), and social protection. It proposes a systematic, holistic and integrated approach for conceptualising the intersections between gender and social protection, to achieve SDG1 (‘end poverty in all its forms everywhere’) and SDG5 (‘achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’) through careful planning, design, implementation and evaluation of a gender-responsive social protection system. The GRASSP conceptual framework builds on and expands existing conceptual and theoretical efforts focused on integrating a gender lens into public policy (see for instance Holmes and Jones 2013, GAGE Consortium 2017). Building on these earlier efforts, the GRASSP conceptual framework brings together several integrated aspects related to gender, social protection, and the life course.
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Study Protocol: Impacts of Pandemics and Epidemics on Child Protection
Дата публикации: июля 2020Больше МеньшеThis protocol details the aims, scope and methodology used for the rapid review titled: “Impacts of Pandemics and Epidemics on Child Protection: Lessons learned from a rapid review in the context of COVID-19." (coronavirus).
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Impacts of Pandemics and Epidemics on Child Protection
Дата публикации: июля 2020Больше МеньшеThis rapid review collates and synthesizes evidence on the child protection impacts of COVID-19 (coronavirus) and previous pandemics, epidemics and infectious disease outbreaks. It provides lessons for global and national responses to COVID19 and recommendations for future research priorities. The evidence on the impacts of pandemics and epidemics on child protection outcomes is limited and skewed towards studies on the effects of HIV/AIDS on stigma. There is also some evidence on the effects of Ebola on outcomes such as orphanhood, sexual violence and exploitation, and school enrolment, attendance and dropout. The evidence on other pandemics or epidemics, including COVID-19, is extremely limited.
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Exploring Critical Issues in the Ethical Involvement of Children with Disabilities in Evidence Generation and Use
Авторы): Stephen Thompson, Mariah Cannon and Mary WickendenДата публикации: июля 2020Больше МеньшеThis paper provides an overview of the key issues drawn from the literature reviewed and suggests established and potential mitigation strategies that could improve ethical practices when involving children with disabilities in evidence generation activities. More evidence generation activities with this group of children are urgently needed, and it is important that conventional and existing ethical practices used with children are further developed to embrace disability inclusion. This will encourage the realization of children’s right to participate and be heard, and ensure that policy and practice are informed by the perspectives and concerns of children with disabilities. Importantly, this approach can support a wider agenda for the greater inclusion in society of children with disabilities.
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Cash Transfers, Public Works and Child Activities
Дата публикации: июля 2020Больше МеньшеThis paper examines the impact of the United Republic of Tanzania’s Productive Social Safety Net (PSSN) on child work and education. Targeting extremely poor households, the programme provides cash transfers that are partly conditional on the use of health and education services, along with a public works component. We relied on a cluster-randomized evaluation design, assigning villages to one of three study arms: cash transfers only; cash transfers combined with public works (i.e., the joint programme); and control. We complemented the quantitative analysis with findings from in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with children and caregivers, involving a subsample of participants from all three study arms. Due to household investment of PSSN benefits in livestock, the programme caused a shift from work for pay outside the household to work within the household, mostly in livestock herding. The programme improved child education outcomes. These findings were echoed in the qualitative data – participants referred to working on family farms as being both safer for children and more beneficial for the family. Participants further discussed the importance of PSSN funds in paying for schooling costs. Impacts were generally no different for communities that received cash only and communities that received both cash and public works components. School dropout, however, decreased in villages where the joint programme was implemented but remained unchanged in villages receiving cash only.
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The Evolving Epidemiologic and Clinical Picture of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Disease in Children and Young People
Авторы): Lynne M. Mofenson, Priscilla Idele, David Anthony, Jennifer Requejo, Danzhen You, Chewe Luo and Stefan PetersonДата публикации: июля 2020Больше МеньшеThe initial impression that pediatric SARS-CoV-2 infection is uncommon and generally mild has been replaced by a more nuanced understanding of infectious manifestations in children and adolescents across low-, middle-, and high-income countries and by demographic structure, with recognition of a widening disease spectrum. Critical knowledge gaps, especially in low- and middle-income countries remain, that have significant public policy and programme implications. Insufficient data dis-aggregated by age, geography and race/ethnicity are hindering efforts to fully assess prevalence of infection and disease in children and adolescents and their role in transmission. Potential biologic differences in susceptibility to infection and transmissibility between children and adults need to be assessed. Determination of mother-to-child SARS-CoV-2 transmission during pregnancy or peripartum requires appropriate samples obtained with proper timing, lacking in most studies. Finally, predictors of disease progression, morbidity and mortality in children need to be determined particularly as the pandemic moves to low- and middle-income countries, where poor nutritional and health conditions and other vulnerabilities are more frequent among children than in higher-income settings. Countries, UN agencies, public health communities, donors and academia need to coordinate the efforts and work collectively to close the data and knowledge gaps in all countries (high, middle and low income) for better evidence to guide policy and programme decision-making for children and COVID-19 (coronavirus) disease.
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Digital Contact Tracing and Surveillance during COVID-19
Авторы): Gabrielle Berman, Karen Carter, Manuel Garcia Herranz and Vedran SekaraДата публикации: июня 2020Больше МеньшеBalancing the need to collect data to support good decision-making versus the need to protect children from harm created through the collection of the data has never been more challenging than in the context of the global COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. The response to the pandemic has seen an unprecedented rapid scaling up of technologies to support digital contact tracing and surveillance. As the pandemic progresses, we are also likely to see the emergence of more applications that link datasets as we seek to better understand the secondary impacts of the pandemic on children and their families. This working paper explores the implications for privacy as the linking of datasets increases the likelihood that children will be identifiable and consequently, the opportunities for (sensitive) data profiling. It also frequently involves making data available to a broader set of users or data managers. While it is recognized that reuse of unidentifiable data could potentially serve future public health responses and research, the nature of, access to and use of the data now and in future necessitate accountability, transparency and clear governance processes. It requires that these be in place from the outset. These are needed to ensure that data privacy is protected to the greatest degree possible and that the limitations to the use of these data are clearly articulated.
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A Rapid Review of Economic Policy and Social Protection Responses to Health and Economic Crises and their Effects on Children
Дата публикации: июня 2020Больше МеньшеThis rapid review seeks to inform the initial and long-term public policy responses to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, by assessing evidence on past economic policy and social protection responses to health and economic crises and their effects on children and families. The review focuses on virus outbreaks/emergencies, economic crises and natural disasters, which, like the COVID-19 pandemic, were 'rapid' in onset, had wide-ranging geographical reach, and resulted in disruption of social services and economic sectors, without affecting governance systems. Evidence is also drawn from the HIV/AIDS pandemic, due to its impacts on adult mortality rates and surviving children. The available evidence on the effects of economic policy and social protection responses is uneven across outcomes, regions, and type of policy response as a large body of literature focused on social assistance programmes. Future research on the COVID-19 pandemic can prioritize the voices of children and the marginalized, assess the effects of expansionary and austerity measures, examine the role of design and implementation, social care services, pre-existing macro-level health, demographic and health conditions and the diverse regional health and economic impacts of the pandemic. The paper also provides key lessons for public policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Multidimensional Child Poverty Measurement in Sierra Leone and Lao PDR
Дата публикации: ноября 2019Больше МеньшеThis research brief compares the properties of individual- and household-based multidimensional child poverty approaches. Specifically, it contrasts UNICEF’s Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) with the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. MODA focuses on children and is rooted in the child rights approach, while MPI has been developed for households and follows Sen’s (1985) capabilities approach. We demonstrate their similarities and differences using two recent Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys: Sierra Leone and Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR). The analysis suggests that MODA tends to produce higher multidimensional child poverty headcount rates than MPI, both because of the differences in the survey items used to construct the indicators of deprivation and because of how the indicators are aggregated and weighted.
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Cash Transfers and Child Nutrition in Zambia
Авторы): Averi Chakrabarti, Sudhanshu Handa, Luisa Natali, David Seidenfeld and Gelson TemboДата публикации: августа 2019Больше МеньшеWe examine the effect of the Zambia Child Grant Programme – an unconditional cash transfer (CT) targeted to rural families with children under age five – on height-for-age four years after programme initiation. The CT scheme had large positive effects on several nutritional inputs including food expenditure and meal frequency. However, there was no effect on height-for-age. Production function estimates indicate that food carries little weight in the production of child height. Health knowledge of mothers and health infrastructure in the study sites are also very poor. These factors plus the harsh disease environment are too onerous to be overcome by the increases in food intake generated by the CT. In such settings, a stand-alone CT, even when it has large positive effects on food security, is unlikely to have an impact on long-term chronic malnutrition unless accompanied by complementary interventions.
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Do Constraints on Women Worsen Child Deprivations?
Авторы): Alberto Posso, Stephen C. Smith and Lucia FerroneДата публикации: августа 2019Больше МеньшеThis paper provides a framework for analyzing constraints that apply specifically to women, which theory suggests may have negative impacts on child outcomes (as well as on women). We classify women’s constraints into four dimensions: (i) low influence on household decisions, (ii) restrictions on mobility, (iii) domestic physical and psychological abuse, and (iv) limited information access. Each of these constraints are in principle determined within households. We test the impact of women’s constraints on child outcomes using nationally representative household Demographic and Health Survey data from India, including 53,030 mothers and 113,708 children, collected in 2015-16. We examine outcomes including nutrition, health, education, water quality, and sanitation. In our primary specification, outcomes are measured as multidimensional deprivations incorporating indicators for each of these deficiencies, utilizing a version of UNICEF’s Multidimensional Overlapping Deprivation Analysis index. We identify causal impacts using a Lewbel specification and present an array of additional econometric strategies and robustness checks. We find that children of women who are subjected to domestic abuse, have low influence in decision making, and limited freedom of mobility are consistently more likely to be deprived, measured both multidimensionally and with separate indicators.
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Child Poverty in Mozambique
Авторы): Lucia Ferrone, Andrea Rossib and Zlata BrukaufcДата публикации: мая 2019Больше МеньшеIn this paper, we provide estimates and analysis of child multidimensional poverty in Mozambique. Drawing on data from the Mozambique Household Budget Survey of 2014/15 (IOF), we define child multidimensional poverty using the Multiple Overlapping Analysis (MODA). We define three age groups of children, and a total of seven dimensions of deprivation: Family, Nutrition, Education, Child labour, Health, WASH, Participation, and Housing. Results show that 81 per cent of children are deprived in at least two dimensions. Children are especially vulnerable in rural areas, where deprivation rates reach 95 per cent, and in the provinces of Niassa, Zambezia, and Cabo Delgado. The dimensions that more frequently overlap in Mozambique are Housing, Health, and WASH, with one third of children being deprived in these three dimensions at the same time. The data also allow the analysis of the interplay between monetary and multidimensional child poverty: 46 per cent of children suffer both forms of poverty. Children who are poor and deprived are children who live in rural areas, in more remote provinces; they live in households whose heads are less educated and whose main activity is agriculture. Finally, there is a direct correlation with shocks affecting the household and multidimensional poverty, with children of families who experienced weather shocks being more likely to be poor, deprived, or both.
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Transformative Change for Children and Youth in the Context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Авторы): Katja Hujo and Maggie CarterДата публикации: апреля 2019Больше МеньшеThe 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a new opportunity to address the key development challenges of our time with the aim to improve the well-being and rights of all people while protecting the natural environment. Children are important agents and beneficiaries in this process: many children are not only among the most vulnerable groups affected by poverty, inequality, conflict and climate change, they are also the generation that will reach adulthood during the realization of the 2030 Agenda. To create the sustainable, long-term transformation ambitiously laid out in Agenda 2030, new transformative approaches to policy must be implemented and applied to children and youth—approaches that target the underlying generative framework of social injustice as opposed to implementing affirmative remedies that simply seek to alleviate the symptoms. The objective of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to help assess the transformative potential of policies – particularly with regard to their impact on children and youth – and how these are meaningfully integrated and represented in decision-making processes. It will shed light on the policy space for transformative change by analysing a range of relevant factors which present both challenges and opportunities for fostering child rights and well-being through the implementation of Agenda 2030. The paper then applies the framework to a selection of policy areas that are of high relevance for child development, such as social policy and care policy assessing necessary means of implementation such as resource mobilization and governance systems and looking at economic and environmental impacts in a cross-cutting way. The aim is to stretch boundaries and invite new thinking on how to grasp the numerous opportunities offered by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to approach development challenges holistically and from a child-centred perspective. This involves integrating economic, social and environmental dimensions of development and fostering cross-sectoral approaches.
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Targeting of Social Protection in 11 Ethiopian Villages
Автор: Elsa ValliДата публикации: февраля 2019Больше МеньшеSocial protection in Ethiopia is primarily allocated through community-based targeting. The few studies that have analysed the efficacy of aid targeting in Ethiopia have revealed targeting biases in regard to demography, geography and political affiliations. With the introduction in Ethiopia in 2005 of the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), a major social protection programme, various administrative guidelines were introduced (and subsequently periodically revised) with the aim of improving targeting. This paper uses data from the last two rounds of the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey to investigate whether PSNP implementation resulted in changes in both targeting determinants and amount received for public works (a component of PSNP) and emergency aid between 2004 and 2009 in 11 rural villages. In general, public works appear to have been allocated on the basis of observable poverty-related characteristics, and emergency aid according to household demographics. In addition, the results suggest that, for both public works and emergency aid beneficiaries, political connections were significant in determining the receipt of aid in 2004 but that this was no longer the case by 2009, indicating an improvement in the channelling of social protection to its intended target groups. However, a household’s experience of recent shocks was found to bear no relationship to receipt of support, which suggests that a more flexible and shock-responsive implementation could improve targeting for transitory needs.
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Child-Related Concerns and Migration Decisions
Авторы): Sara Burrone, Bina D’Costa and Goran HolmqvistДата публикации: февраля 2019Больше МеньшеCurrent times are characterized by unprecedented migration levels: millions of people are on the move worldwide. Thus, understanding why people decide to migrate is a major goal of policymakers and international organizations, and migration has become a prominent issue on the global research agenda. Traditional migration drivers can be divided into reasons to leave (‘push’ factors) and reasons to migrate (‘pull’ factors), and include income deprivation, dissatisfaction with public services and institutions in the home country, conflict and war, climate change, and social networks abroad. In this paper, we focus our attention on children’s well-being as a potential migration driver. We investigate it by using the Gallup World Poll, a repeated cross-section dataset of a survey conducted in more than 150 countries from 2006 to 2016. We estimate the association between planned and intended migration and children’s perceived well-being using logit models with standardized coefficients, robust standard errors, and year and country fixed effects. Estimates reveal a positive and statistically significant association between child-related concerns, migration intent and plans. In particular, the probability of individuals having migration intent and plans increases where they report lower levels of satisfaction with child-related issues, as measured by the Youth Development Index, an index driven by indicators of respect for children and satisfaction with the education system. Moreover, children’s well-being affects more individuals living in households with children than those without. Finally, migration is a child- and youth-related phenomenon: young individuals would like to migrate, and plan to do so, more than older individuals.
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Can Social Assistance (With a Child Lens) Help in Reducing Urban Poverty in Ghana? Evidence, Challenges and the Way Forward
Дата публикации: ноября 2018Больше МеньшеExperience with urban social assistance programmes is still limited. Many of the existing urban programmes are extensions or duplicates of rural programmes, but urban-sensitive social protection needs to reflect the distinct vulnerabilities of the urban poor. Furthermore, applying a child lens requires identifying and addressing the specific risks and multiple deprivations that are experienced by half of urban children in developing countries. As a result, designing social assistance for urban contexts faces challenges such as accurately targeting the poor (given the spatial geography of urban poverty) and setting appropriate payment levels (given the high and variable costs of urban living). Geographic targeting (e.g. informal settlements), proxy means testing (if urban-sensitive) and categorical targeting (e.g. street children) are popular mechanisms in urban areas, but community-based targeting is often inappropriate (because of urban social fragmentation) while self-targeting can be unethical (e.g. where wages below market rates are paid in public works projects) and might contradict rights-based approaches. These are relevant challenges to address when designing urban social protection programmes. We apply these reflections to Ghana. The country is a relevant case study because it is growing and urbanizing rapidly. But as the result of urbanization, urban poverty and deprivations are rising even though national poverty rates have halved. Anti-poverty policies and social protection interventions remain biased towards the rural poor. The ‘urbanization of poverty’ in Ghana has created problems such as overcrowded housing, limited access to sanitation, and outbreaks of communicable diseases. This paper provides guidance on the critical questions to ask to design in Ghana a successful urban social protection programme with a child lens.
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Measuring Inequality in Children’s Education in Rich Countries
Авторы): Anna Gromada, Gwyther Rees, Yekaterina Chzhen, Jose Cuesta and Zlata BruckaufДата публикации: октября 2018Больше МеньшеThere is growing recognition among international organizations, scholars and policymakers that education systems must produce equitable outcomes, but there is far less consensus on what this means in practice. This paper analyses differences in inequality of outcome and inequality of opportunity in educational achievement among primary and secondary schoolchildren across 38 countries of the European Union (EU) and/or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The analysis focuses on reading achievement, drawing on data from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We use several measures to operationalize the two concepts of inequality in education. Our results show that inequality of outcome does not necessarily go hand in hand with inequality of opportunity. These two concepts lead to measures that produce very different country rankings. We argue that information on both inequality of outcome and inequality of opportunity is necessary for a better understanding of equity in children’s education.
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“It Empowers to Attend.”
Дата публикации: октября 2018Больше МеньшеParenting interventions can dramatically reduce violence against children and improve a child’s future. Yet in the past, research has mainly focused on young children in high-income countries, and most of the research has only used quantitative methodology. By contrast, this qualitative study focuses on teenagers and their caregivers who attended a parenting programme in South Africa, contributing to a small but growing body of research on parent support programmes for teenagers in low and middle-income countries. The research examines the Sinovuyo Teen Parenting programme, which was developed and tested between 2012 and 2016 in South Africa. The main qualitative study was carried out in the last year (2015–2016) and is the focus of this paper. It complements a cluster randomized controlled trial. This qualitative study captures the experiences of teenagers and parents who attended the Sinovuyo Teen Parenting programme in 2015. Importantly, the study gives an insight into how the caregivers and teenagers changed as a result of participating in the study. Findings show that both caregivers and teenagers valued the programme and their participation fostered better family relations and reduced violence at home. Their views are important for practitioners, programme implementers and researchers working in violence prevention and child and family welfare. More research is needed, however, to show whether these changes can be sustained.
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Policy and Service Delivery Implications for the Implementation and Scale-up of an Adolescent Parent Support Programme
Авторы): Heidi Loening-Voysey, Jenny Doubt, Barnaby King, Jasmina Byrne and Lucie CluverДата публикации: октября 2018Больше МеньшеThis paper examines a four-year evidence-based study on an adolescent parenting support pilot programme known as Sinovuyo Teen. The parenting support programme aims to reduce violence inside and outside the home in a poor rural community in Eastern Cape, South Africa. This is one of the four working papers looking at data from a qualitative study that complemented a cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT). Both the study and the trial were conducted during the last year of the parenting support programme. The research question was: What are the policy and service delivery requirements and implications for scaling up the Sinovuyo Teen Parenting programme in South Africa and beyond? The primary data for this paper were collected through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) with key stakeholders, including programme implementers. Thematic analysis identified four themes, three of which are presented in this paper: programme model; programme fit in a service delivery system; and programme in local cultural and policy context. Although the findings show the Sinovuyo Teen Parenting programme was positively viewed, if it were to be scaled up and sustainable, the intervention would need to be grounded in established policies and systems.
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The Intricate Relationship between Chronic Undernutrition, Impaired Linear Growth and Delayed Puberty
Авторы): Susan C. Campisi, Bianca Carducci, Olle Söder and Zulfiqar A. BhuttaДата публикации: июля 2018Больше МеньшеChronic undernutrition is characterized by long-term exposure to food of insufficient quality and inadequate quantity, including restricted intake of energy, protein, fat, micronutrients, essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals. Physiologically, in a state of chronic food insufficiency, the human body conserves energy by prioritizing essential metabolic processes resulting in impaired linear growth and delayed reproductive maturation. Consequently, height can theoretically be considered a measure of an individual’s cumulative health and nutrition. Therefore, a deviation from the ‘normal’ height relative to one’s age represents a deviation from one’s optimal growth and, potentially, the presence of other issues. Similarly, the delayed onset of puberty is another common physiological response to food insufficiency, often accompanying impaired linear growth. Chronic undernutrition can arise from chronic disease, congenital abnormalities and insufficient food intake. In this review, we will explore the hypothesis of CUG during adolescence, given the relationship between impaired linear growth and the delayed onset of puberty in children suffering from chronic undernutrition due to a lack of sufficient quality and quantity of food.
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Developing a Global Indicator on Bullying of School-Aged Children
Авторы): Dominic Richardson and Chii Fen HiuДата публикации: июня 2018Больше МеньшеThe rate of bullying among children is a key indicator of children’s well-being and an important marker for comparing global social development: both victims and perpetrators of bullying in childhood suffer across various dimensions, including personal social development, education, and health, with negative effects persisting into adulthood. For policymakers and professionals working with children, high rates of bullying amongst children should raise warning flags regarding child rights’ failings. Moreover, bullying amongst school-aged children highlights existing inefficiencies in the social system, and the potential for incurring future social costs in the communities and schools in which children live their lives. Inevitably, these concerns have contributed to bullying becoming a globally recognized challenge – every region in the world collects information on children’s experiences of bullying. Yet, despite the identification and monitoring of bullying having global appeal, so far, a validated global measure has not been produced. To fill this gap in knowledge, this paper develops a global indicator on bullying amongst children using existing school-based surveys from around the world. The findings of this paper show that bullying is a complex phenomenon that takes multiple forms, and is experienced to widely varying degrees across the world.
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Economic Transfers and Social Cohesion in a Refugee-Hosting Setting
Авторы): Elsa Valli, Amber Peterman and Melissa HidroboДата публикации: июня 2018Больше МеньшеThere is increasing interest in understanding if social protection has the ability to foster social cohesion, particularly between refugees and host communities. Using an experimental evaluation of transfers, including cash, food and food vouchers to Colombian refugees and poor Ecuadorians in urban and peri-urban areas we examine if transfers resulted in changes in social cohesion measures. The evaluation was a cluster-randomized control trial examining a short-term programme implemented over six months by the World Food Programme. We examine six aggregate dimensions of social cohesion, derived from 33 individual indicators, in addition to an overall index of social cohesion. Overall results suggest that the programme contributed to integration of Colombians in the hosting community through increases in personal agency, attitudes accepting diversity, confidence in institutions, and social participation. However, while having no impact for the Ecuadorian population. There were no negative impacts of the programme on indicators or domains analysed. Although we are not able to specifically identify mechanisms, we hypothesize that these impacts are driven by joint targeting, messaging around social inclusion and through interaction between nationalities at mandated monthly nutrition trainings.
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Comparing the Productive Effects of Cash and Food Transfers in a Crisis Setting
Автор: Benjamin SchwabДата публикации: июня 2018Больше МеньшеThe productive impacts of transfer programmes have received increased attention. However, little is known about such effects in emergency and crisis settings. Even less is known about whether transfer type – a food basket or a cash grant – influences the productive potential of such transfers. Theory suggests that, while cash transfers can relieve liquidity constraints associated with investments, subsidized food provision, by acting as a form of insurance, may prevent households from retreating to conservative income-generating strategies during volatile periods. Using a randomized field experiment in Yemen, we contrast the effects of transfer modality. The results demonstrate a modest productive impact of both modalities and suggest a role for both liquidity and price risk channels. Cash transfer recipients invested relatively more in activities with higher liquidity requirements (livestock), while food recipients incorporated higher-return crops into their agricultural portfolios.
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How to Target Households in Adaptive Social Protection Systems?
Автор: Pascale SchnitzerДата публикации: июня 2018Больше МеньшеThe methods used to identify beneficiaries of programmes aiming to address persistent poverty and shocks are subject to frequent policy debates. Relying on panel data from Niger, this paper analyses the performance of different targeting methods that are widely used by development and humanitarian actors and explores how they can be applied as part of an adaptive social protection (ASP) system. The methods include proxy-means testing (PMT), household economy analysis (HEA), geographical targeting, and combined methods. Results show that PMT performs better in identifying persistently poor households, while HEA performs better in identifying transiently food insecure households. Geographical targeting is particularly efficient in responding to food crises, which tend to be largely covariate in nature. Combinations of geographical, PMT, and HEA approaches may be used as part of an efficient and scalable ASP system. Results motivate the consolidation of data across programmes, which can support the application of alternative targeting methods tailored to programme-specific objectives.
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Estimating the Welfare Costs of Reforming the Iraq Public Distribution System
Авторы): Nandini Krishnan, Sergio Olivieri and Racha RamadanДата публикации: июня 2018Больше МеньшеIraq’s public distribution system (PDS) is the only universal non-contributory social transfer system in the world. Through three decades of conflict and fragility, food rations delivered through the PDS have remained the single largest safety net among Iraq’s population. Reforming the PDS continues to be politically challenging, notwithstanding its heavy dependence on imports and associated economic distortions as well as an unsustainable fiscal burden. The fiscal crisis since mid-2014 has, however, put PDS reform back on the agenda. In this context, this paper employs a mixed demand approach to analyse consumption patterns in Iraqi households and quantify the welfare impact of a potential reform of the PDS in urban areas. The results of the ex ante simulations show that household consumption of PDS items is relatively inelastic to changes in price, particularly among the poorest quintiles, and that these goods are normal goods. Cross-sectional comparisons suggest that, with improvements in welfare, and with well-functioning markets, some segments of the population are substituting away from the PDS and increasing their consumption of market substitutes. Overall, the results suggest that any one-shot reform will have adverse and sizeable welfare impacts. The removal of all subsidies in urban areas will require compensating poor households by 74 per cent of their expenditures and the richest households by nearly 40 per cent to keep welfare constant. However, a targeted removal of the top 4 deciles from PDS eligibility in urban areas will leave poverty rates unaffected and generate cost savings, but will need to be carefully communicated and managed to counter public discontent.
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No Lost Generation
Авторы): Jacobus De Hoop, Mitchell Morey and David SeidenfeldДата публикации: июня 2018Больше МеньшеThis paper documents the impact of a cash transfer programme – an initiative of the Government of Lebanon, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP), widely known as the No Lost Generation Programme (NLG) and, locally, as Min Ila (‘from to’) – on the school participation of displaced Syrian children in Lebanon. The programme provides cash to children who are enrolled in the afternoon shift of a public primary school. It was designed to cover the cost of commuting to school and to compensate households for income forgone if children attend school instead of working, two critical barriers to child school participation. We rely on a geographical regression discontinuity design comparing children living in two pilot governorates with children in two neighbouring governorates to identify the impact of the programme halfway in the first year of operation (the 2016/17 school year). We find limited programme effects on school enrollment, but substantive impacts on school attendance among enrolled children, which increased by 0.5 days to 0.7 days per week, an improvement of about 20 per cent over the control group. School enrollment among Syrian children rose rapidly across all of Lebanon’s governorates during the period of the evaluation, resulting in supply side capacity constraints that appear to have dampened positive impacts on enrollment.
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Assets for Alimentation?
Авторы): Tilman Brück, Oscar Días Botía, Neil Ferguson, Jérôme Ouédraogo and Zacharias ZiegelhöferДата публикации: июня 2018Больше МеньшеA recent strand of aid programming aims to develop household assets by removing the stresses associated with meeting basic nutritional needs. In this paper, we posit that such programmes can also boost nutrition in recipient households by encouraging further investment in diet. To test this hypothesis, we study the World Food Programme’s “Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation (PRRO)” in Niger, a conflict-affected, low income country with a high share of malnourishment. Under PRRO, a household could be in one of three groups at endline: receiving food aid to prevent malnutrition, receiving both preventive food aid and food for assets assistance, or receiving no assistance (the control group). When provided only by itself, the food aid has no nutritional impact, relative to receiving no assistance. However, we observe pronounced positive effects when preventive food aid is paired with assets-based programming, over and above what stems from greater household assets. We conclude, first, that certain forms of food aid function well in complex, insecure environments; second, that assets-based programmes deliver positive nutritional spillovers; and, third, that there are theoretical grounds to believe that asset-based programmes interact positively with more nutrition-focused programming.
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School Feeding or General Food Distribution?
Авторы): Elisabetta Aurino, Jean-Pierre Tranchant, Amadou Sekou Diallo and Aulo GelliДата публикации: июня 2018Больше МеньшеWe rely on a unique pre-crisis baseline and five-year follow-up to investigate the effects of emergency school feeding and general food distribution (GFD) on children’s schooling during conflict in Mali. We estimate programme impact on child enrolment, absenteeism and attainment by combining difference in differences with propensity score matching. School feeding led to increases in enrolment by 11 percentage points and to about an additional half-year of completed schooling. Attendance among boys residing in households receiving GFD, however, declined by about 20 per cent over the comparison group. Disaggregating by conflict intensity showed that receipt of any programme led to rises in enrolment mostly in high-intensity conflict areas and that the negative effects of GFD on attendance were also concentrated in the most affected areas. Conversely, school feeding mostly raised attainment among children residing in areas not in the immediate vicinity of the conflict. Programme receipt triggered adjustments in child labour. Thus, school feeding led to lower participation and time spent in work among girls, while GFD raised children’s labour, particularly among boys. The educational implications of food assistance should be considered in planning humanitarian responses to bridge the gap between emergency assistance and development by promoting children’s education.
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A Mixed-Method Review of Cash Transfers and Intimate Partner Violence in Low and Middle-Income Countries
Дата публикации: марта 2018Больше МеньшеThere is increasing evidence that cash transfer (CT) programs decrease intimate partner violence (IPV); however, little is known about how CTs achieve this impact. We conducted a mixed method review of studies in low- and middle-income countries. Fourteen quantitative and nine qualitative studies met our inclusion criteria, of which eleven and six respectively demonstrated evidence that CTs decrease IPV. We found little support for increases in IPV, with only two studies showing overall mixed or adverse impacts. Drawing on these studies, as well as related bodies of evidence, we developed a program theory proposing three pathways through which CT could impact IPV: 1) Economic security and emotional wellbeing, 2) intra-household conflict, and 3) women’s empowerment. The economic security and wellbeing pathway hypothesizes decreases in IPV, while the other two pathways have ambiguous effects depending on program design features and behavioural responses to program components. Future studies should improve IPV measurement, empirical analysis of program mechanisms, and fill regional gaps. Program framing and complementary activities, including those with the ability to shift intra-household power relations are likely to be important design features for understanding how to maximize and leverage the impact of CTs for reducing IPV, and mitigating potential adverse impacts.
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Commitment to Equity for Children (CEQ4C)
Авторы): Jose Cuesta, Jon Jellema, Yekaterina Chzhen and Lucia FerroneДата публикации: марта 2018Больше МеньшеFiscal incidence analysis is the most widely used methodology to assess the distributional effects of fiscal policies. However, for 40 years, it has lacked a child lens. A child focus on the redistributive capacity of fiscal policy is increasingly important due to the disproportionate incidence of poverty among children globally. This paper provides a child-dedicated focus on fiscal incidence analysis by tracking child-relevant benefits, turning children the unit of analysis, and using multidimensional child poverty metrics. The analysis–Commitment to Equity for Children, or CEQ4C–integrates three analytical frameworks, namely, public finance, fiscal incidence analysis, and multidimensional child poverty analysis. The paper develops a proof of concept for Uganda that includes measurement, diagnostics, and a policy simulation package replicable across diverse contexts. The proof of concept confirms that CEQ4C provides a higher-resolution fiscal incidence analysis for children than the traditional fiscal incidence analysis.
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Delivering a Parenting Programme in Rural South Africa
Авторы): Jenny Doubt, Heidi Loening-Voysey, Daphnée Blanc, Lucie Cluver, Jasmina Byrne and Tshiamo PetersenДата публикации: февраля 2018Больше МеньшеA pre-post study examining the effectiveness of a parenting support programme in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, showed reductions in child abuse, child delinquency, parent and child depression, parenting stress and substance use. It also showed improvements in parental supervision, positive parenting and social support. In addition to the pre-post study, a qualitative enquiry was conducted with the programme facilitators. This paper explores the experiences and perception of local child and youth care workers, who were trained to deliver the parenting programme in vulnerable, semi-rural communities. The purpose of this publication is to make recommendations on how to improve the programme for scale-up, in South Africa and beyond.
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Child Undernourishment, WASH and Policy Synergies in Tunisia
Авторы): Jose Cuesta and Laura Maratou-KoliasДата публикации: октября 2017Больше МеньшеThis paper develops an econometric strategy to operationalize the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEFs) conceptual framework for nutrition, estimating the effects on child stunting that additional investments in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) intervention packages have across population groups (poor and non-poor) and residence (urban and rural). Moving away from estimating single intervention marginal returns, the empirical framework is tested in Tunisia; a country with notable but uneven progress in child nutrition. A successful reduction of stunting will involve mapping the distinctive most effective intervention packages by residence and socioeconomic status, moving away from universal policies.
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Linking Social Rights to Active Citizenship for the Most Vulnerable
Дата публикации: октября 2017Больше МеньшеThe rise of social protection into the limelight of social policy has opened up space for understanding how it can act as a key interface between states and citizens. This paper rethinks social protection through the lens of citizenship. It considers how the design and implementation of social protection can be shifted away from discretionary and technocratic forms, to forms which stimulate vulnerable citizens to make justice-based claims for their rights and demand accountability for the realisation of those rights. It puts forward a conceptual framework for social protection with three modalities through which citizens can be engaged: as shapers and makers; as users and choosers; and as passive consumers.
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How to Make ‘Cash Plus’ Work
Дата публикации: августа 2017Больше МеньшеThe broad-ranging benefits of cash transfers are now widely recognized. However, the evidence base highlights that they often fall short in achieving longer-term and second-order impacts related to nutrition, learning outcomes and morbidity. In recognition of these limitations, several ‘cash plus’ initiatives have been introduced, whereby cash transfers are combined with one or more types of complementary support. This paper aims to identify key factors for successful implementation of these increasingly popular ‘cash plus’ programmes, based on (i) a review of the emerging evidence base of ‘cash plus’ interventions and (ii) an examination of three case studies, namely, Chile Solidario in Chile, IN-SCT in Ethiopia and LEAP in Ghana. The analysis was guided by a conceptual framework proposing a menu of ‘cash plus’ components. The assessment of three case studies indicated that effective implementation of ‘cash plus’ components has indeed contributed to greater impacts of the respective programmes. Such initiatives have thereby addressed some of the non-financial and structural barriers that poor people face and have reinforced the positive effects of cash transfer programmes. In design of such programmes, further attention should be paid to the constraints faced by the most vulnerable and how such constraints can be overcome. We conclude with recommendations regarding the provision of complementary support and cross-sectoral linkages based on lessons learned from the case studies. More research is still needed on the impact of the many variations of ‘cash plus’ programming, including evidence on the comparative roles of individual plus components, as well as the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour pathways which influence these impacts.
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Myth-Busting?
Дата публикации: июня 2017Больше МеньшеIn this paper we summarize evidence on six perceptions associated with cash transfer programming, using eight rigorous evaluations conducted on large-scale government unconditional cash transfers in sub-Saharan Africa, under the Transfer Project. Specifically, we investigate if transfers: 1) induce higher spending on alcohol or tobacco; 2) are fully consumed (rather than invested); 3) create dependency (reduce participation in productive activities); 4) increase fertility; 5) lead to negative community-level economic impacts (including price distortion and inflation), and 6) are fiscally unsustainable. We present evidence refuting each claim, leading to the conclusion that these perceptions – insofar as they are utilized in policy debates – undercut potential improvements in well-being and livelihood strengthening among the poor, which these programmes can bring about in sub-Saharan Africa, and globally. We conclude by underscoring outstanding research gaps and policy implications for the continued expansion of unconditional cash transfers in the region and beyond.
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Prevalence and Correlates of Food Insecurity Among Children Across the Globe
Авторы): Audrey L. Pereira, Sudhanshu Handa and Goran HolmqvistДата публикации: июня 2017Больше МеньшеTarget 2.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals calls to end hunger, in all its forms, by 2030. Measuring food security among children under age 15, who represent a quarter of the world’s population, remains a challenge and is unfeasible for global monitoring. The SDG framework has agreed to use the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) to measure moderate and severe food insecurity. The FIES is an experience-based metric that reports food-related behaviours on the inability to access food due to resource constraints. We present the first global estimates of the share and number of children below age 15, who live with a respondent who is food insecure.
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Comparing Child-Focused Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in High-Income Countries
Авторы): Dominic Richardson, Zlata Bruckauf, Emilia Toczydlowska and Yekaterina ChzhenДата публикации: июня 2017Больше МеньшеThe new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development aim to build on the achievements made under the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by broadening their scope and building upon a consultative process. The MDGs contributed to substantial social progress in eight key areas: poverty; education; gender equality; child mortality; maternal health; disease; the environment; and global partnership. The SDGs not only include a greater number of development goals than the MDGs, but are also global in focus, including advanced economies for the first time. This paper draws attention to the main challenges the 2030 Agenda presents for rich countries, by highlighting a set of critical child specific indicators, evaluating countries’ progress towards meeting the Goals, and highlighting gaps in existing data. The paper will inform UNICEFs Report Card 14, Building the Future: Children and the Sustainable Development Goals in Rich Countries.
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Children and the Data Cycle
Авторы): Gabrielle Berman and Kerry AlbrightДата публикации: июня 2017Больше МеньшеIn an era of increasing dependence on data science and big data, the voices of one set of major stakeholders – the world’s children and those who advocate on their behalf – have been largely absent. A recent paper estimates one in three global internet users is a child, yet there has been little rigorous debate or understanding of how to adapt traditional, offline ethical standards for research involving data collection from children, to a big data, online environment (Livingstone et al., 2015). This paper argues that due to the potential for severe, long-lasting and differential impacts on children, child rights need to be firmly integrated onto the agendas of global debates about ethics and data science. The authors outline their rationale for a greater focus on child rights and ethics in data science and suggest steps to move forward, focusing on the various actors within the data chain including data generators, collectors, analysts and end-users. It concludes by calling for a much stronger appreciation of the links between child rights, ethics and data science disciplines and for enhanced discourse between stakeholders in the data chain, and those responsible for upholding the rights of children, globally.
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Sustainable Development Goal 1.2
Авторы): Yekaterina Chzhen, Zlata Bruckauf and Emilia ToczydlowskaДата публикации: мая 2017Больше МеньшеThe new universal Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for “reducing at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions” by 2030. Since few European Union (EU) countries have an official national multidimensional poverty measure for monitoring progress towards the SDGs, this paper proposes and evaluates a child-specific multidimensional poverty measure using data from ad hoc material deprivation modules of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2009 and 2014. The proposed measure can be used both for national and EU-wide SDG monitoring without replacing either national or EU-wide indices of material deprivation. Comparing child multidimensional poverty rates between 2009 and 2014, the paper ranks EU countries based on the 2014 headcount rates and changes over time.
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Child Malnutrition, Consumption Growth, Maternal Care and Price Shocks
Авторы): Richard De Groot, Sudhanshu Handa, Luigi Peter Ragno and Tayllor SpadaforaДата публикации: мая 2017Больше МеньшеChildhood malnutrition remains a significant global health concern. In order to implement effective policies to address the issue, it is crucial to first understand the mechanisms underlying malnutrition. This paper uses a unique dataset from Northern Ghana to explain the underlying causes of childhood malnutrition. It adopts an empirical framework to model inputs in the production of health and nutrition, as a function of child, household and community characteristics. The findings suggest that child characteristics are important in explaining inputs and nutritional outcomes, and that maternal agency and health contribute to improved health status. Household resources in the form of consumption are positively associated with food intake and nutritional outcomes. Simulations show that income growth, improving maternal care and avoiding sudden price shocks have a positive but rather limited effect on the reduction of malnutrition. Effects are greater in children under two. Hence, policies that address underlying determinants simultaneously, and target the youngest population of children, could have the largest effect on reducing malnutrition in this population.
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Why Assist People Living in Poverty?
Дата публикации: ноября 2016Больше МеньшеThe paper provides an examination of the relevance of ethics to poverty reduction. Ethics examines the nature and scope of institutions as the deepest level of analysis. The ethics of poverty is understood as the principles and processes of justification employed to justify assisting people in poverty. The paper argues that ethical perspectives are relevant to understanding poverty and the priority given to poverty reduction in society. It further argues that ethical perspectives inform the design and scope of anti-poverty programmes. Drawing on the recent expansion of social assistance in Brazil, South Africa and Ghana, the paper shows that ethical perspectives are relevant to our understanding of the evolution of anti-poverty policy.
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Understanding Children’s Experiences of Violence in Viet Nam
Автор: Vu Thi Thanh HuongДата публикации: ноября 2016Больше МеньшеThis paper explores children’s accounts of violence at home in Viet Nam, and the ways in which factors at the individual, family, community and society levels affect their experiences of violence. The paper analyses cross-sectional survey data and qualitative data gathered from Young Lives; it explores what children know about violence, how they experience it, what they think drives violence at home, what they perceive the consequences to be, and finally, the support they find effective in addressing violence. High proportions of children experience violence (mostly physical punishment and emotional abuse). The paper contributes to knowledge about the nature and experience of violence affecting children in resource-poor settings, and concludes with some suggestions for policy, programming and practice.
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Understanding Children’s Experiences of Violence in Ethiopia
Авторы): Alula Pankhurst, Nathan Negussie and Emebet MulugetaДата публикации: ноября 2016Больше МеньшеThis research report explores children’s accounts of everyday violence in Ethiopia, and the ways in which factors at individual, family, community, institutional and society levels affect children’s experiences of violence. The report primarily draws on analysis of four rounds of longitudinal qualitative data gathered over seven years, complemented with analysis of cross-sectional survey data from Young Lives. After a brief description of the policy context and literature review, the paper describes the study then presents findings from the survey and qualitative research, exploring home, schools, communities, differences by age and gender, and children’s responses to violence. Violence affecting children – mostly physical punishment and emotional abuse – is widespread, accepted, and normalized. Differing economic activities affect family dynamics and the likelihood of children experiencing violence, which is often linked to the challenges of poverty and the expectation that children will contribute to the household economy. The report adds to knowledge about the nature and experiences of violence affecting children in resource-poor settings, and concludes with some suggestions for policies, programming and practice.
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Factors Associated with Good and Harsh Parenting of Pre-Adolescents and Adolescents in Southern Africa
Дата публикации: ноября 2016Больше МеньшеBackground: There is limited research on the factors associated with parenting and the subsequent outcomes for children and adolescents in southern Africa. Evidence from the global north shows the importance of parenting on child development. There is a pressing need for such research in the global south, in order to inform the development of effective interventions to support families. Method:This working paper presents findings from the analyses of two different observational studies of caregiver-pre-adolescent (4-13 years, referred to as the ‘pre-adolescent study’) and caregiver-adolescent (10-17 years, referred to as the ‘adolescent study’) dyads. Regression and structural equation modelling techniques are used to identify practices constituting good and harsh parenting, factors associated with these parenting behaviours and child and adolescent outcomes. Results: Poverty and stigma were found to be negatively associated with good parenting of pre-adolescents whilst biological parents, depression and multiple adults within a household were positively associated. Good parenting in pre-adolescents was associated with fewer educational risks and behavioural problems as well as increased self-esteem, mediated by child trauma and depression. In adolescents, family disadvantage (poverty, AIDS-ill caregiver and caregiver disability) were found to be associated with an increase in harsh parenting and poor caregiver mental health, both of which were associated with increased adolescent health risks. Conclusion:These findings show the importance of parenting for pre-adolescent and adolescent outcomes in southern Africa. They also show that structural disadvantage factors are major predictors of less good parenting. Better support for parents living in high-risk contexts is clearly essential if we are to promote the health and well-being of the next generation.
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Understanding Children’s Experiences of Violence in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, India
Авторы): Virginia Morrow and Renu SinghДата публикации: ноября 2016Больше МеньшеThis paper explores children’s accounts of violence in Andhra Pradesh, India, and the ways in which factors at the individual, family, community, institutional and society levels affect children’s experiences of violence. The paper analyses cross-sectional survey data and case studies from longitudinal qualitative data gathered over a seven-year period, from Young Lives. The paper is divided into four sections – a brief background section, study design and methods, findings from the survey, and findings from case studies. Large proportions of children experience violence (mostly physical punishment and emotional abuse) within their families, at school and, to some extent, within their communities. The findings demonstrate how children’s experiences of violence change with age and that gender differences within this dynamic process are very distinct. The paper reveals that a child’s disapproval of violence does not necessarily influence behaviour in later life, confirming the need for interventions to prevent and tackle violence as children grow up. More promisingly, children also describe strategies through which to protect themselves from violence and the threat of violence. The paper contributes to knowledge about the nature and experience of violence among children in resource poor settings, and concludes with some suggestions for policy, programming and practice.
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Understanding Children’s Experiences of Violence in Peru
Авторы): Gabriela Guerrero and Vanessa RojasДата публикации: ноября 2016Больше МеньшеThis paper describes children’s experiences of violence at home in Peru, using a life-course approach. Violence against children at home tended to increase with age, as children took on more chores (especially in rural areas), and spent more time away from home (in some cases, in urban areas). The chances of being hit by parents increased when children failed in their responsibilities; spending more time away from home also presented potential dangers for children (e.g., being robbed in the community, joining a gang, etc.), and so violence was used as a means to protect them and to prevent them from being led astray. We discuss how living in poverty affects relationships between parents and children. Meeting the basic economic needs of a family is the priority for parents, who then have limited time, energy and resources to devote to their children. We also found that children exposed to violence in the home are also frequently exposed to corporal punishment at school. Parents are often aware of this situation and support teachers to punish their children, because it is considered critical for children’s learning and education. Addressing violence affecting children requires a multi-level approach that incorporates not only measures to address the manifestations of violence affecting children, but also the underlying factors driving that violence.
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The Effect of Cash Transfers and Household Vulnerability on Food Insecurity in Zimbabwe
Авторы): Garima Bhalla, Sudhanshu Handa, Gustavo Angeles and David SeidenfeldДата публикации: сентября 2016Больше МеньшеWe study the impact of the Zimbabwe Harmonized Social Cash Transfer (HSCT) on household food security after 12 months of implementation. The programme has had a strong impact on a well-known food security scale – the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) – but muted impacts on food consumption expenditure. However aggregate food consumption hides dynamic activity taking place within the household where the cash is used to obtain more food from the market and rely less on food received as gifts. The cash in turn gives them greater choice in their food basket which improves diet diversity. Further investigation of the determinants of food consumption and the HFIAS shows that several dimensions of household vulnerability correlate more strongly with the HFIAS than food consumption. Labour constraints, which is a key vulnerability criterion used by the HSCT to target households, is an important predictor of the HFIAS but not food expenditure, and its effect on food security is even larger during the lean season.
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Governance and Policy Coordination
Авторы): B. Guy Peters and Andrew MawsonДата публикации: сентября 2016Больше МеньшеThis research, the second of two case studies, explores coordination through the lens of civil registration and vital statistics, with particular reference to birth registration in Peru. It focuses on the role that coordination can play in making birth registration function effectively. While the capacity of governments to deliver the function of birth registration is central to this paper, the role that understanding coordination can play in improving public services is examined, especially services for children. The capacity to register the births of children is a long-standing function of governments, and can be seen as a test of government effectiveness. In Peru, backward mapping showed that the trails from local and district registrars to the government registration organization (RENIEC) stopped almost immediately. This seems to point towards the centralized structure and top-down approach of RENIEC; to sustain its achievements to date and to reach the final three per cent of unregistered births it should consider incentivizing and empowering local and community administrations.
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Child Poverty in Armenia
Авторы): Lucia Ferrone and Yekaterina ChzhenДата публикации: августа 2016Больше МеньшеThis report provides the first comprehensive national estimates of multidimensional child poverty in Armenia, measured using UNICEF’s Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) methodology. Dimensions and indicators for three age groups (0-5, 6-14 and 15-17) were selected as the result of a broad consultative process with key stakeholders convened by UNICEF Armenia. Based on nationally representative data from the Armenian Integrated Living Conditions Survey 2013/14, the study finds that 64 per cent of children under 18 are deprived in 2 or more dimensions, with a substantially higher rate in rural than in urban areas. The highest rates of deprivation are in access to utilities, quality housing and leisure activities. More than one in four children are both multidimensionally deprived and live in consumption-poor households, while more than one in three are deprived but do not live in poor households. The findings suggest that to target the most vulnerable children, policies should concentrate on closing the rural/urban divide in infrastructure and on strengthening social safety nets, especially in rural areas.
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Happiness and Alleviation of Income Poverty
Авторы): Kelly Kilburn, Sudhanshu Handa, Gustavo Angeles, Peter Mvula and Maxton TsokaДата публикации: августа 2016Больше МеньшеThis study analyzes the impact of an exogenous, positive income shock on caregivers’ subjective well-being in Malawi using panel data from 3,365 households targeted to receive Malawi’s Social Cash Transfer Programme that provides unconditional cash to ultra-poor, labour-constrained households. The study consists of a cluster-randomized, longitudinal design. After the baseline survey, half of these village clusters were randomly selected to receive the transfer and a follow-up survey was conducted 17 months later. Utilizing econometric analysis and panel data methods, we find that household income increases from the cash transfer can have substantial subjective well-being gains among caregivers. Households use the cash to improve their families’ livelihoods, ensuring provision of their basic needs including food, shelter, and clothing. Reduction of these daily stresses makes caregivers happier about their current situations and gives them hope that the future will continue to get better.
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Can Unconditional Cash Transfers Lead to Sustainable Poverty Reduction?
Авторы): Sudhanshu Handa, Luisa Natali, David Seidenfeld, Gelson Tembo and Benjamin DavisДата публикации: августа 2016Больше МеньшеWorldwide close to 800 million people are reached by state-operated cash transfer programmes. In sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest region in the world, the number of cash transfer programmes has doubled in the last five years and reaches close to 50 million people. What is the impact of these programmes, and do they offer a sustained pathway out of ultra-poverty? In this paper we examine these questions using experimental data from two unconditional cash transfer programmes implemented by the Government of Zambia. We find far-reaching effects of these two programmes, not just on their primary objective, food security and consumption, but also on a range of productive and economic outcomes. After three years, we observe that household spending is 59 per cent larger than the value of the transfer received, implying a sizeable multiplier effect. These multipliers work through increased non-farm business activity and agricultural production.
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What We Know about Ethical Research Involving Children in Humanitarian Settings
Дата публикации: июня 2016Больше МеньшеThis working paper identifies and explores the issues that should be considered when undertaking ethical research involving children in humanitarian settings. Research grounded in sound ethical principles is critical in ensuring that children’s rights are respected throughout the process and beyond and that the research itself is relevant, useful and valid. This paper examines both the universal (i.e. relevant to all research involving children) and specific ethical issues that may arise when involving children in research in humanitarian settings. This is undertaken through an examination of the literature, a review of relevant case studies and a reflection on the ethical issues highlighted in UNICEF’s Procedure for Ethical Standards in Research, Evaluation, Data Collection and Analysis (the Ethics Procedure). The latter is used as a baseline for generic ethical standards when involving children in research.
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Does Market Access Mitigate the Impact of Seasonality on Child Growth?
Авторы): Kibrewossen Abay and Kalle HirvonenДата публикации: июня 2016Больше МеньшеSeasonality in agricultural production continues to shape intra-annual food availability and prices in low-income countries. Using high-frequency panel data from northern Ethiopia, this study attempts to quantify seasonal fluctuations in children's weights. In line with earlier studies, we document considerable seasonality in children’s age and height adjusted weights. While children located closer to local food markets are better nourished compared to their counterparts residing in more remote areas, their weights are also subject to considerable seasonality. Further analysis provides evidence that children located closer to food markets consume more diverse diets than those located farther away. However, the content of these diets varies across seasons: children are less likely to consume animal source foods during the lean season. This leads us to conclude that households located near these food markets are not able to insulate their children from seasonal weight fluctuations. We discuss some policy options with potential to address this threat to child well-being.
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Towards Inclusive Education
Авторы): Suguru Mizunoya, Sophie Mitra and Izumi YamasakiДата публикации: мая 2016Больше МеньшеThe paper aims to reduce the global knowledge gap pertaining to the impact of disability on school attendance, using cross-nationally comparable and nationally representative data from 18 surveys in 15 countries that are selected among 2,500 surveys and censuses. These selected surveys administered the Washington Group Short Set (WGSS) of disability-screening questions, covering five functional domains of seeing, hearing, mobility, self-care, and remembering, and collected information on educational status. Using both descriptive and econometric approaches, the paper finds that (i) the average disability gap in school attendance stands at 30% in primary and secondary schools in 15 countries; (ii) more than 85% of disabled primary-age children who are out of school have never attended school; (iii) the average marginal effect of disability on primary and secondary school attendance is negative and significant (-30%), and (iv) countries that have reached close to universal primary education report high ratios of disabled to non-disabled out-of-school children indicating that general education policies to improve access do not effectively mainstream disabled children in education, and (v) disabled children confront the same difficulties in participating in education, regardless of their individual and socio-economic characteristics.
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Child Poverty Dynamics and Income Mobility in Europe
Авторы): Yekaterina Chzhen, Emilia Toczydlowska and Sudhanshu HandaДата публикации: апреля 2016Больше МеньшеWhile a long-standing literature analyses cross-country variation in the incidence of child poverty in rich countries in a single year, less is known about children’s individual movements into and out of low household income over a period of time. Using longitudinal data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), the present study addresses this gap by analysing both income mobility and child poverty dynamics in the EU during the recent economic crisis. It finds that income growth among children has been generally pro-poor but not sufficiently so to put a brake on the increasing income inequality. There is substantial heterogeneity among the EU-SILC countries in the rates of child poverty entry and exit. Scandinavian countries tend to combine lower exit and entry rates, while Southern and Eastern European countries tend to have higher rates of both poverty exit and entry. Household-level income events, i.e. relative growth in employee earnings, are found to be the most important predictors of transitions in and out of poverty, followed by employment events (i.e. changes in the number of adult workers), while the relatively rare demographic events have little bearing on child poverty transitions in the EU-SILC.
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Income Inequality Among Children in Europe 2008–2013
Авторы): Emilia Toczydlowska, Yekaterina Chzhen, Zlata Bruckauf and Sudhanshu HandaДата публикации: апреля 2016Больше МеньшеWith income inequality increasing and children exposed to higher risks of poverty and material deprivation than the population as a whole in the majority of European countries, there is a concern that income inequality among children has worsened over the financial crisis. This paper presents results on the levels of bottom-end inequality in children’s incomes in 31 European countries in 2013 and traces the evolution of this measure since 2008. The relative income gap is measured as the difference between the median and the 10th percentile, expressed as a percentage of the median. In 2013 it ranged from 37% in Norway to 67% in Romania. The relative income gap worsened in 20 of the 31 European countries between 2008 and 2013. The unequal growth rate in child income across the distribution is a factor contributing to the increase in bottom-end child income inequality. Between 2008 and 2013 only three countries – the Czech Republic, Finland, and Switzerland – have managed to decrease the relative income gap between the average and the poorest children as a result of the income of poor children rising faster in real terms than the income of a child at the median. Social transfers play a positive role in reducing income differentials, as post-transfer income gaps are smaller than those before transfers, especially in countries like Ireland and the United Kingdom. Countries with greater bottom-end income inequality among children have lower levels of child well-being, and higher levels of child poverty and material deprivation. They also have higher income inequality overall, as measured by the Gini coefficient.
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Poverty and Children’s Cognitive Trajectories
Авторы): Zlata Bruckauf and Yekaterina ChzhenДата публикации: апреля 2016Больше МеньшеExisting evidence is inconclusive on whether a socio-economic gradient in children’s cognitive ability widens, narrows or remains stable over time and there is little research on the extent of ‘cognitive mobility’ of children who had a poor start in life compared to their peers. Using data from five sweeps of the United Kingdom (UK) Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) at the ages of 9 months, 3 years, 5 years, 7 years and 11 years, this paper explores the cognitive ability trajectory of children in the bottom decile of the distribution at a given age, and the factors that drive or hinder their progress relative to their peers. Using discrete-time event history analysis methods, the paper analyses children’s risks of moving in and out of the bottom decile of the cognitive ability distribution. The findings indicate a relatively high level of cognitive mobility between ages 3 and 11, especially in the pre-school period (between ages 3 and 5), with children from income-poor households more likely to get ‘trapped’ in the bottom of the age-specific cognitive ability distribution. Parental education plays a dual buffer role: it protects children from falling behind their peers as well as increasing the chances of moving up the ability distribution. Parental involvement, such as reading to a child and regular bedtimes at the age of 3, was found to protect children from falling into the bottom group of cognitive distribution but not necessarily helping lower scoring children to move up.
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Adolescents at Risk
Авторы): Sophie D. Walsh, Zlata Bruckauf and Tania GasparДата публикации: апреля 2016Больше МеньшеAdolescence is a time of transitions when experimentation, risk taking and active peer interactions can be viewed as a part of the development process. Yet, for some groups of young people with reported poor psychosomatic health, low life satisfaction or unhealthy eating habits these experiences may be different. Empirical evidence is limited in recognising the overlapping and cumulative risks of adolescents’ health disadvantage and multiple externalized risk behaviours and outcomes (smoking, drinking, binge drinking, regular fighting, injuries and bullying). Drawing on the most recent 2013/2014 data of the Health Behaviour of School Children (HBSC) study, this paper examines the risks of individual and cumulative risks (three or more types) associated with being in the bottom group of psychosomatic health complaints, life satisfaction and unhealthy eating (excessive sugar consumption) across 29 countres. Using multivariate logistic modelling, the association that was the strongest, most consistent and independent of family affluence (FAS) was that between cumulative risks and high levels of psychosomatic health complaints. Similarly consistent, although weaker, is the association found between adolescents’ low life satisfaction and unhealthy eating. Only in Greece and Hungary does the association between cumulative risks and life satisfaction seem to be mediated by family socio-economic status (SES). This is also the case for Denmark and Malta in the case of unhealthy eating.
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Children in the Bottom of Income Distribution in Europe
Автор: Emilia ToczydlowskaДата публикации: апреля 2016Больше МеньшеIn the context of increasing child poverty, deprivation rates and the relative child income gap, and with the most economically vulnerable children hit extensively by the crisis (Chzhen 2014), this paper sets out to understand who are the most disadvantaged children. Analysis of the composition of the children at the bottom end of the income distribution illustrates that households with a lone parent, at least one migrant member, low work intensity, low education, or in large families are overrepresented in the first decile to different degrees in European countries. The analyses also reveal immense differences in living standards for children across Europe. In European countries included in the analyses, at least 1 in 5 children in the poorest decile lives in a deprived household. A closer look at the different dimensions of deprivation at the child-specific level, reveals what living in the poorest decile means for children’s everyday life. Children in the bottom end of the income distribution are prone to a lack of a suitable place to study or do homework. The shares of children in the poorest decile living in a household that cannot afford fruit and vegetables daily or one meal with meat or protein at least once a day are worryingly high. They can also be considered to be deprived in relation to social aspects such as insufficient resources at home to provide regular leisure activity, or to invite friends to play or eat from time to time, or to participate in schools trips and school events that cost money.
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Falling Behind
Автор: Zlata BruckaufДата публикации: апреля 2016Больше МеньшеEarly identification of students who fail to reach basic, age-appropriate literacy skills is the first step to ensure timely support of their learning. Understanding those drivers of low achievement that are beyond students’ control enables policy makers to foster equal opportunity for achievement. Drawing on the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000 to 2012 data, this paper examines the risk factors of low achievement, defined here as scoring below the 10th percentile of the distribution, and their evolution over time, across 39 industrialized nations. These include an aggregate measure of socio-economic status (SES), immigration background, non-test language spoken at home, living in a single parent household, and gender. We find that family SES, is one of the most consistent predictors of low-achievement (across a diverse range of educational systems) and most persistent (across time) . Students' immigration background is found to be strongly interlinked with family SES, yet affects low achievement independently. Language disadvantage is one of the possible channels through which immigration can increase risks of low achievement. It has a strong and relatively consistent association with low achievement across countries. Meanwhile family structure, specifically a single-parent household, is a risk factor in only two out of 39 countries (Greece and Poland). We also find no evidence that the gender gap in reading – in favour of girls – narrowed over time, leaving boys at risk of educational disadvantage in the majority of countries.
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Family Affluence and Inequality in Adolescent Health and Life Satisfaction
Авторы): Yekaterina Chzhen, Irene Moor, William Pickett, Emilia Toczydlowska and Gonneke StevensДата публикации: апреля 2016Больше МеньшеA large body of literature has established socio-economic gradients in adolescent health, but few studies have investigated the extent to which these gradients are associated with very poor health outcomes. The current analysis examined the extent to which the socio-economic background of adolescents relates to very poor self-reported health and well-being (the so-called ’bottom end’). For this analysis, we use data from the last four cycles of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study (2001/02, 2005/06, 2009/10, and 2013/14) for 32 European and North American countries in the EU and/or OECD. We examined the following as indicators of adolescent health: psychosomatic health complaints; physical activity; healthy eating; unhealthy eating; and life satisfaction. Adolescents who scored below the mean of the lower half of the distribution of a given indicator fall in the “bottom group” on this indicator. Family affluence is used as a measure of adolescents’ socioeconomic background (transformed to ridit score). In the vast majority of the countries studied, adolescents from families with a relatively low socio-economic status had a greater likelihood of reporting poor health. The largest, most persistent and widespread socio-economic gradients are in life satisfaction, physical activity and healthy eating, while the findings are mixed for unhealthy eating and psychosomatic health. Socio-economic inequalities were largely stable, but in a sizeable minority of the countries, socio-economic inequalities in physical activity and healthy eating have widened between 2001/02 and 2013/14, while inequalities in unhealthy eating and life satisfaction have narrowed in several countries.
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Inequalities in Adolescent Health and Life Satisfaction
Дата публикации: апреля 2016Больше МеньшеInternational studies of inequalities in adolescent health tend to focus on the socio-economic gradient in average outcomes rather than their dispersion within countries. Although understanding the extent to which differences in health are related to socio-economic disadvantage is important, focusing exclusively on socio-economic status risks neglecting differences in the distribution of health outcomes within and between countries. To fill this research gap, this study analyses variation in the extent of inequality in the lower half of the distribution in five indicators of adolescent health and well-being – health symptoms, physical activity, healthy eating, unhealthy eating, and life satisfaction – across EU and/or OECD countries that took part in the latest cycle of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study. The study then analyses secular trends in health inequalities over a decade between 2001/02 and 2013/14, using data from the latest four HBSC cycles. Inequality in unhealthy eating has the largest cross-country variation of all the indicators studied, while inequality in life satisfaction varies the least. The relative gaps in health and life satisfaction are significantly negatively correlated with the respective average outcomes. Inequality in health symptoms has increased in most of the countries studied between 2002 and 2014. In contrast, inequality in physical activity and in unhealthy eating decreased in the majority of the countries over this decade. About as many countries recorded a long-term increase as those that saw a decrease in inequality in healthy eating and in life satisfaction.
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Education for All?
Авторы): Zlata Bruckauf and Yekaterina ChzhenДата публикации: апреля 2016Больше МеньшеMeasuring inequality of learning outcomes in a way that provides meaningful benchmarks for national policy while retaining a focus on those students who are ‘hard to reach’ and ‘hard to teach’ is a challenging but vital task in the light of the global post-2015 education agenda. Drawing on PISA 2012 data and its earlier rounds, this paper explores alternative approaches to measuring educational inequality at the ‘bottom-end’ of educational distribution within the cross-national context. Its main aim is to understand how far behind children are allowed to fall in their academic achievement compared to what is considered a standard performance in their country. Under the framework of relative (measured as achievement gap between the median and 10th percentile) and absolute (measured by the percentage of students achieving at a given benchmark) educational disadvantage it examines cross-country rankings as well as national trajectories with reference to overall academic progress. We find that on average across OECD countries around 11% of 15- year-olds lacked skills in solving basic reading, mathematical, as well as science, tasks in 2012, but variation across countries was large. The average achievement gap in mathematics across OECD countries between low-achieving and ‘average’ students stood at around 122 score points; in reading, at 131 score points; and in science, at 124 score points. This paper argues that understanding how the reduction in bottom-end inequality is achieved matters no less than the outcome itself, as it often reflects the level of support provided to low-achieving students. As our analysis shows, narrowing the achievement gap might be due to falling academic standards and have no direct benefit to the ‘bottom group’.
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Why Income Inequalities Matter for Young People’s Health
Дата публикации: апреля 2016Больше МеньшеAlthough child and adolescent inequalities are still less understood than those of adults (1), we have made progress in understanding the pathways that lead to negative outcomes and the limitations of some ‘adult-specific’ indicators as proxies of young people’s health and well-being. Nonetheless, the academic literature has been able to establish a clear negative relationship between a person’s material circumstances and their health outcomes and behaviours such as being overweight, lack of physical activity, higher levels of smoking and mental health problems; all of which persist throughout a person’s life. The personal and societal toll of these effects is clear yet policies are still lagging behind, tackling proximal causes rather than ‘the causes of the causes’ (2) of these health inequalities. Policymakers, researchers and the public must come together to ensure that no child is a victim of inequalities through no fault of their own. This paper aims to summarise relevant knowledge on the socio-economic causes of health inequalities in children. It will not only provide a foundation to the Innocenti Report Card 13 in terms of outlining our knowledge regarding the drivers of health inequality but it will also help us shed light on its consequences.
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Early-Life Exposure to Income Inequality and Adolescent Health and Well-Being
Авторы): Frank J. Elgar and Candace CurrieДата публикации: марта 2016Больше МеньшеThe health of children and adolescents in high income countries negatively relates to income inequality. Theoretical interpretations of this association suggest that inequality intensifies social hierarchies, erodes social or material resources that support health, or impacts socioemotional development in childhood and subsequently harms health. The evidence in support of this causal interpretation is limited by a reliance on cross-sectional, ecological studies. Using multilevel panel data from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study, this paper examines lagged and contemporaneous associations between national income inequality and health and well-being during adolescence. Health symptoms and life satisfaction were measured in successive surveys of 11- to 15-year-olds in Europe and North America between 1994 and 2014. These data were linked to country-level income inequality for each survey year (contemporaneous effects) and for earlier developmental periods, at 0-4 years and 5-9 years (lagged effects), dating back to 1979 – the birth year of 15-year-olds in the 1994 survey cycle. Societal growth curve modelling was used to pool data from successive survey cycles and to isolate age, period, and cohort effects. The results show evidence of lagged effects of income inequality during childhood (5-9 years) on health symptoms and life satisfaction in adolescents (11-15 years), after differences in concurrent income inequality and income per capita, cohort, time period, and individual gender, age, and affluence were held constant. This period of development for income inequality exposure coincides with the early school years when social relationships extend from the family to school and community settings. Inequality may shape child developmental trajectories in ways that later manifest in reduced health and well-being. Though not causal evidence in the strictest sense, these findings establish antecedent-consequence conditions in the association between income inequality and health. The practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.
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Making Money Work
Авторы): Luisa Natali, Sudhanshu Handa, Amber Peterman, David Seidenfeld and Gelson TemboДата публикации: марта 2016Больше МеньшеSavings play a crucial role in faciliating investment in income-generating activities and the pathway out of poverty for low-income households in developing settings. Yet there is little evidence of successful programmes that increase savings, particularly those that are simultaneously cost effective, scaleable and address gender inequalities. This paper examines the impact of the Government of Zambia’s Child Grant Programme (CGP), an unconditional cash transfer targeted to women in households with young children, on women’s savings and participation in non-farm enterprises. We use data over three years from a large-scale randomized controlled trial across three rural districts in Zambia. We find that the CGP enabled poor women to save more cash and that the impact is larger for women who had lower decision-making power at baseline. Moreover, we find that the programme increased diversification into non-farm enterprises that are traditionally operated by women, driven in part by the increased savings generated by the cash transfer. We posit that the key design feature of the programme that make these results possible is that the transfer is unconditional and paid directly to women. The results support the proposition that cash transfers have the potential for long-term sustainable improvements in women’s financial position and household well-being by promoting savings and facilitating productive investments among low-income rural households.
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Cash for Women’s Empowerment?
Дата публикации: января 2016Больше МеньшеThe empowerment of women, broadly defined, is an often-cited objective and benefit of social cash transfer programmes in developing countries. Despite the promise and potential of cash transfers to empower women, the evidence supporting this outcome is mixed. In addition, there is little evidence from programmes that have gone to scale in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper reports findings from a mixed-methods evaluation of the Government of Zambia’s Child Grant Programme, a poverty-targeted, unconditional transfer given to mothers or primary caregivers of young children aged 0 to 5. The quantitative component was a four-year longitudinal clustered randomized control trial in three rural districts, and the qualitative component was a one-time data collection involving in-depth interviews with women and their partners, stratified on marital status and programme participation. Our study found that women in beneficiary households were making more sole and joint decisions (across five domains); however, impacts translated into relatively modest increases of an additional 0.34 of a decision made across nine domains on average. Qualitatively, we found that changes in intrahousehold relationships were limited by entrenched gender norms, which indicate men as heads of household and primary decision-makers. However, women’s narratives showed the transfer did increase overall household well-being because they felt increased financial empowerment and were able to retain control over transfers for household investment and savings for emergencies. The paper highlights methodological challenges in using intrahousehold decision-making as the primary indicator to measure empowerment. Despite this, the results show potential for national, poverty-targeted, unconditional, government-run programmes in Africa, to improve the well-being of female beneficiaries.
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Heterogeneous Impacts of an Unconditional CashTransfer Programme on Schooling
Дата публикации: ноября 2015Больше МеньшеThe paper uses data from a quasi-experimental evaluation to estimate the impact of the Ghanaian Government’s unconditional cash transfer programme on schooling outcomes. It analyses the impacts for children by various subgroups – age, gender, cognitive ability – and finds consistent impacts. There are differences across gender, especially on secondary schooling, with enrolment significantly higher for boys 13 years or older. For girls, the effect of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme is to improve current attendance among those who are already enrolled in school (across all age groups). The authors found a significant effect on the expenditure on schooling items such as uniforms and stationary for these groups, which helps to explain the pathway of impact because these out-of-pocket costs are typically important barriers to schooling in rural Ghana and most of Africa.
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Unconditional Government Social CashTransfer in Africa Does Not Increase Fertility
Авторы): Tia Palermo, Sudhanshu Handa, Amber Peterman, Leah Prencipe and David SeidenfeldДата публикации: ноября 2015Больше МеньшеAmong policymakers, a common perception surrounding the effects of cash transfer programmes, particularly unconditional programmes targeted to families with children, is that they induce increased fertility. We evaluate the Zambian Child Grant Programme, a large-scale government unconditional cash transfer targeted to families with a child under the age of five and examine impacts on fertility and household composition. The evaluation was a cluster randomized control trial, with data collected over four years from 2010 to 2014. Our results indicate there are no programme impacts on overall fertility. In addition, among young women under 25 years fertility actually decreased after 36 months, but impacts disappeared after 48 months. Our results contribute to a small evidence base demonstrating that there are no unintended incentives related to fertility due to cash transfers.
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The Measurement of Food Insecurity Among Children
Авторы): Maryah S. Fram, Jennifer Bernal and Edward A. FrongilloДата публикации: сентября 2015Больше МеньшеChild food insecurity is associated with a range of negative developmental consequences, including behaviour problems. While research shows that the phenomenon is both common and consequential, there is a lack of consistency in what is being measured and how. This results in incomplete information affecting our ability to effectively address child food insecurity, its causes and consequences. We present a review of the literature, and advocate for a global system to measure and monitor individual children’s experiences of food insecurity. The conceptual and practical challenges for developing an effective, efficient, and feasible system for global monitoring of child food insecurity are discussed and alternatives are suggested.
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Cash Transfers and Child Nutrition
Авторы): Richard De Groot, Tia Palermo, Sudhanshu Handa, Luigi Peter Ragno and Amber PetermanДата публикации: августа 2015Больше МеньшеChildhood malnutrition remains a significant global problem with an estimated 162 million children under 5 suffering from stunted growth. Social protection interventions, in particular cash transfer programmes, have the potential to contribute to the improvement of child nutrition. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the impacts of cash transfer programmes on the immediate and underlying determinants of child nutrition, including the most recent evidence from impact evaluations across sub-Saharan Africa. It adopts the UNICEF extended model of care conceptual framework of child nutrition and highlights evidence on the main elements of the framework – food security, care and health care. The paper concludes that, while an increasing number of studies have stressed the positive role of cash transfer programmes in increasing resources for food, health and care, the evidence to date on the immediate determinants of child nutrition is mixed with respect to whether cash transfers can positively impact growth-related outcomes among children, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Key gaps that should be addressed in future research include cash transfer impacts on more proximate nutrition-related outcomes such as children’s dietary diversity, as well as caregiver behaviours, intra-household violence, and stress, all of which have implications for child health and well-being.
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Social Networks and Risk Management in Ghana’s Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Programme
Авторы): Silvio Daidone, Sudhanshu Handa, Benjamin Davis, Mike Park, Robert D. Osei and Isaac Osei-AkotoДата публикации: августа 2015Больше МеньшеWe use data from a quasi-experimental impact evaluation of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme, one of Ghana’s largest social protection initiatives, providing unconditional cash transfers and free enrolment in the National Health Insurance Scheme to extremely poor households in rural areas. Implementation of the programme was inconsistent during the study period, as LEAP households did not receive a steady flow of predictable cash with which to smooth consumption. Impact results from the evaluation are consistent with behaviour suggesting that the programme did not lead to a perceived increase in permanent income. While LEAP did not lead to an increase in consumption, there are significant impacts in the reduction of the amount of debt held and the increase in loan repayments. We also find what appears to be an important risk reduction strategy among households – the re-engagement with informal social networks. This pattern of impacts is probably due to the uncertain and lumpy payments from LEAP which enabled households to have enough capital on hand to make such ‘investments’, suggesting that rather than crowding out informal safety nets, LEAP actually led to ‘crowding in’, allowing beneficiary households to re-establish and re-engage in local systems of risk reduction and protection.
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Governance and Policy Coordination
Авторы): B. Guy Peters and Andrew MawsonДата публикации: июня 2015Больше МеньшеEstablishing “what works under what conditions” is becoming a mantra in the development context, both in academia and among international development organizations. This, however, is not an issue of the technical modalities of service provision alone. Just as important is their contextual framing, including analyzing real time governance factors. It is necessary to understand and address bottlenecks that impede the success of an intervention, or that make an intervention that works well in one context unrealistic or inappropriate in another. This means having an analysis of institutions and the power relations within and between them, as well as the incentives motivating both elites and the behaviour of service users (or non-users, as the case may be). Coordination is a critical governance issue. UNICEF’s Monitoring Results for Equity approach identifies coordination as a determinant of results for children, alongside other governance issues such as budgeting, management and legislation. This is why the Office of Research has partnered with Guy Peters, Professor of American Governance at the University of Pittsburgh, to carry out two case studies on bottlenecks in coordination, of which this study in Ghana is the first.
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Is There Catch-Up Growth?
Авторы): Sudhanshu Handa and Amber PetermanДата публикации: мая 2015Больше МеньшеThe ability to correct deficiencies in early childhood malnutrition, what is known as catch-up growth, has widespread consequences for economic and social development. While clinical evidence of catch-up has been observed, less clear is the ability to correct for chronic malnutrition found in impoverished environments in the absence of extensive and focused interventions. This paper investigates whether nutritional status at early age affects nutritional status a few years later among children using panel data from China, South Africa and Nicaragua. The key research question is the extent to which state dependence in linear growth exists among young children, and what family and community level factors mediate state dependency. The answer to this question is crucial for public policy due to the long term economic consequences of poor childhood nutrition. Results show strong but not perfect persistence in nutritional status across all countries, indicating that catch-up growth is possible though unobserved household behaviours tend to worsen the possibility of catch-up growth. Public policy that can influence these behaviours, especially when children are under 24 months old, can significantly alter nutrition outcomes in South Africa and Nicaragua.
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Child Poverty and Deprivation in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Авторы): Lucia Ferrone and Yekaterina ChzhenДата публикации: апреля 2015Больше МеньшеThis study provides the first estimates of national multidimensional child deprivation rates in Bosnia and Herzegovina using the National Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) pioneered by UNICEF. A participatory national process led to the selection of two age groups and a set of deprivation dimensions for each group. The analysis uses data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2011-2012 for children aged 0 to 4 and the Expanded Household Budget Survey (EHBS) 2011 for children aged 5 to 15. The dimensions analysed for children under five are: Nutrition, Health, Child Development, Violent Discipline, Information Access, and Housing, while for older children seven dimensions were used: Nutrition, Clothing, Educational Resources, Leisure, Social Participation, Information Access and Housing. This study shows that almost all children aged 0 to 4 (98.1%) are deprived in at least one dimension, and a third (33.2%) are deprived in four or more dimensions at a time. Almost three out of four children aged 5 to 15 (73.8%) are deprived in at least one dimension, while fewer than one in four (22.8%) are deprived in three or more dimensions. Poor children are more likely to be deprived in any of the dimensions studied and in any number of dimensions simultaneously. However, the degree of overlap between deprivation and poverty is moderate, with only 13.8% of 5-15-year-olds both poor and deprived in at least three out of seven dimensions studied. Some deprivations show a higher degree of sensitivity to household consumption (e.g. clothing and nutrition), while others are not as readily amenable to increasing household expenditure (e.g. information and housing). Therefore, policies aimed at reducing child poverty and deprivation need to improve both the spending power of households and the availability of services/infrastructure in local areas.
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The Impact of Zambia’s Unconditional Child Grant on Schooling and Work
Авторы): Sudhanshu Handa, Luisa Natali, David Seidenfeld and Gelson TemboДата публикации: апреля 2015Больше МеньшеThis paper reports the impact on child schooling and work of the Government of Zambia’s Child Grant Programme (CGP), an unconditional cash transfer programme targeted to households with children aged under 3 years in three districts of the country. Although the CGP’s focus is on very young children, we look to see if the programme has impacts on older children who are not the explicit target group. We use data from a large-scale social experiment involving 2,519 households, half of whom were randomized out to a delayed-entry control group, which was implemented to assess the impact of the programme. Ex-ante analysis suggests that given the pattern of income effects and structural features of the Zambian schooling system, we would see impacts at very young ages, at the age of drop out, and little impact on child labour. Indeed, actual estimated impacts indicate that the CGP has raised school enrolment and possibly even decreased child paid labour. Programme impacts on enrolment at age 4-7 range from 5 to 6 percentage points, and larger impacts from 6 to 9 percentage points are seen for children age 11-14 years old who are transitioning to lower secondary school. An important pathway for these effects is through the purchase of school uniforms and shoes. The impacts reported here compare favorably with the ones from the CCT literature from Latin America, and lead to the conclusion that unconditional cash transfers in Africa have significant positive impacts on children’s human capital.
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Child Poverty and Deprivation in Mali
Дата публикации: декабря 2014Больше МеньшеThis study provides the first ever estimates of national child deprivation rates in Mali using the Multiple Overlapping Deprivations Approach (MODA) pioneered by UNICEF. Deprivations are defined according to the age of the child. A participatory national process led to the selection of four distinct age groups and a set of deprivation dimensions for each age group. The age groups are 0-23 months, 24-59 months, 5-14 years and 15-17 years. The younger age groups have 7 dimensions of deprivation while the older age groups have 6 dimensions. The national child deprivation rate is 50%, slightly higher than the national (monetary) child poverty rate of 46%. The deprivation rate is based on a threshold of 4 for children 0-59 months and 3 for children 5-17 years. The deprivation headcount is 60% in rural areas versus 16% in urban areas. The highest deprivation headcounts are found in Kidal (73%), Tombouctou (72%) and Mopti (68%). The headcount is 9% in Bamako. The overlap of children who are both poor and deprived is 29% of all children, hence not all children who are deprived are living in poor households as defined by the national poverty line. Only 58% of children who are deprived live in poor households. Similarly, only 62% of children in poor households are multidimensionally deprived. Consequently, policies that are targeted exclusively on monetary poverty will miss children who are deprived. Across regions in Mali the correlation between deprivation and poverty rates is uneven. The highest monetary poverty rate is in Sikasso (86%) where the child deprivation rate is around the national average. On the other hand, regions with the highest deprivation rates (Kidal, Tombouctou) have poverty rates of only 16% and 33% respectively. These patterns are related to the level of services available for families with children in each region and underscore the fact that low levels of poverty do not automatically translate into reductions in child deprivation. The relationship between being deprived and monetary poverty is strongest in rural areas for all age groups. An increase of USD 1 per person per day would reduce the probability of being deprived by 25 percentage points in rural areas. The specific dimensions most strongly linked with income are health for younger children and education for older children. Beyond income, maternal education is an important determinant of childhood deprivation, especially in rural areas. Children 0-59 months in rural areas whose mothers have attained secondary schooling are 21 percentage points less likely to be deprived; the comparable figure for older children 5-17 years of age is 20 percentage points.
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A Tale of Two Short Consumption Modules
Авторы): Luisa Natali and Chris de NeubourgДата публикации: декабря 2014Больше МеньшеTwo short consumption modules were piloted in Bogra and Sirajganj (Bangladesh) in May-June 2012 as part of the Global MICS5 Pilot. This paper aims at validating this exercise and assessing the accuracy and reliability of the consumption estimates obtained. The use of a benchmark consumption module is essential in order to assess how well the two short options fare; the analysis therefore consists of a systematic comparison of both short modules with a benchmark. The attempt made is to isolate and test the impact of the length (degree of commodity) of the consumption questionnaire on the quality of consumption and poverty estimates as well as distributional measures obtained. We conclude that it is feasible to include a short consumption module in MICS (Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys). The Bangladesh experience suggests that this module can give accurate predictions of aggregate consumption and poverty, allowing for the analysis of monetary and non-monetary dimensions of welfare together. However the module cannot be used to analyze individual consumption groups (like food, nonfoods, etc.) or consumption patterns.
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Analysing Child Poverty and Deprivation in Sub-Saharan Africa
Авторы): Marlous de Milliano and Ilze PlavgoДата публикации: ноября 2014Больше МеньшеThis paper analyses multidimensional child deprivation across thirty countries in sub-Saharan Africa, applying the Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) methodology that measures various aspects of child poverty. The methodology has been adapted to the particular needs of this cross-country comparative study, standardising the indicators and thresholds to allow comparability across countries. Child poverty is defined as non-fulfilment of children’s rights to survival, development, protection and participation, anchored in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. DHS and MICS household survey data is used, taking the child as unit of analysis and applying a life-cycle approach when selecting dimensions and indicators to capture the different deprivations children experience at different stages of their life. The main objective of the paper is to present a direct method of child poverty measurement analysing deprivations experienced by the child. The paper goes beyond mere deprivation rates and identifies the depth of child poverty by analysing the extent to which the different deprivations are experienced simultaneously. The analysis is done across thirty countries in sub-Saharan Africa that together represent 78% of the region’s total population. The findings show that 67% of all the children in the thirty countries suffer from two to five deprivations crucial to their survival and development, corresponding to 247 million out of a total of 368 million children below the age of 18 living in these thirty countries. For the other 15 countries of sub-Saharan Africa where the CC-MODA analysis could not be carried out, predictions of child deprivation rates have been made using GDP per capita, urban population share, and population size. Based on the actual as well as the predicted multidimensional deprivation rates, just under 300 million children in sub-Saharan Africa are multidimensionally poor, being deprived in two to five dimensions crucial for their survival and development. The findings are also compared with other existing poverty measures, showing that for the countries included in the analysis, monetary poverty measures (both the international $1.25 a day and national poverty measures) are weak predictors of multidimensional child poverty. The study finds stronger correlation between multidimensional child deprivation and GDP per capita. The paper underlines that monetary poverty and multidimensional deprivation are conceptually different, complementary poverty measures and that there are advantages in measuring both simultaneously, especially when measuring child poverty.
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Understanding Child Deprivation in the European Union
Авторы): Yekaterina Chzhen, Chris de Neubourg, Ilze Plavgo and Marlous de MillianoДата публикации: ноября 2014Больше МеньшеPoverty has serious consequences for children’s well-being as well as for their achievements in adult life. The Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis for the European Union (EU-MODA) compares the living conditions of children across the EU member states, plus Iceland and Norway. Rooted in the established multidimensional poverty measurement tradition, EU-MODA uses the international framework of child rights to inform the construction of indicators and dimensions essential to children’s material well-being, taking into account the needs of children at various stages of their life cycle. The study contributes to the literature on monetary child poverty and material deprivation in the EU by analysing several dimensions of child deprivation individually and simultaneously, constructing multidimensional deprivation indices, and studying the overlaps between monetary poverty and multidimensional deprivation. The paper demonstrates the application of the EU-MODA methodology to three diverse countries: Finland, Romania and the United Kingdom. The analysis uses data from the ad hoc material deprivation module of the EU-SILC 2009 because it provides comparable micro-data for EU member states and contains child-specific deprivation indicators.
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Significant Changes to Family-Related Benefits in Rich Countries During the Great Recession
Авторы): Yekaterina Chzhen, Saara Hämäläinen and Jorge VargasДата публикации: ноября 2014Больше МеньшеMounting pressure from the financial markets prompted most industrialized countries to engage in fiscal consolidation since 2010-2011, with social transfers among the most popular targets. To analyse the effect of the economic crisis and the ensuing fiscal stimulus and/or consolidation measures on children’s living conditions across the OECD and/or the EU, this paper investigates changes in disposable incomes of low-wage households with children since 2008, with a particular focus on family-related benefits. It uses the model family method coupled with tax-benefit simulation techniques for the period 2008-2012. The paper also summarises qualitatively significant changes to family-related benefits, some of which are too recent to have been included in the publicly available tax-benefit simulation models. Family benefits have been particularly hard hit between 2008 and 2012. Their real value declined for lone parent households (with two school-age children) earning 20% of the average wage in 20 out of 37 countries, although in nine of them, increases in housing benefits, in-work benefits or social assistance made up for it at least partially. Taking all social transfers into account, the households studied saw their net incomes fall in real terms due to benefit cuts in nine out of 37 countries: Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Spain, and the UK.
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Changes in Child Poverty in the OECD/EU During the Great Recession
Дата публикации: октября 2014Больше МеньшеThis note describes the evolution of child poverty in 41 OECD and/or European Union (EU) countries during the Great Recession (GR).Though not a measure of direct child well-being, the strong association between child development and household income makes income poverty a useful indicator of the trajectory of child well-being both in the short- and medium-term. In 2012 there were around 76.5 million children living in poverty in the 41 OECD countries studied here. During the period 2008-2012 child poverty rates increased in 23 of the 41 OECD countries for which we have comparable data; in total, approximately 6.6 million children became poor and 4 million left poverty for a net increase of 2.6 million. Five countries at the bottom of our Child Poverty League Table had child poverty increases that were over 10pp. However, due to their relative size and despite only modest increases in child poverty rates, Mexico and the United States are home to over half of the newly poor children during this period with 2 and 1.7 million respectively. The correlation between child poverty changes and GDP changes is high, with a simple regression implying that a GDP per capita level in 2011 that was 95% of the level in 2007 is associated with a 4.4 pp increase in the child poverty rate. While this bivariate relationship does not imply causality, the strength of the relationship is striking and illustrates the susceptibility of families with children to overall macroeconomic conditions, whatever the causal mechanism underlying the relationship. A League Table of the 50 US states, home to over a third of all children in the OECD shows that child poverty has increased in 34 out of 51 states (50, plus Washington DC) and that also among US states changes in child poverty are strongly correlated with changes in the business cycle. A combined League Table of the 51 US states and the OECD countries illustrates the large heterogeneity in the US; while as a whole it is in the middle of the country Table, three states actually fall into the top ten (Mississippi, North Dakota, West Virginia) best performers and several others fall into the bottom 10 of worst performers.
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Pre-Crisis Conditions and Government Policy Responses
Автор: Bruno MartoranoДата публикации: октября 2014Больше МеньшеChile and Mexico experienced extraordinary economic and social improvements over the first decade of the twenty-first century. Nonetheless, the 2008–2009 international crisis dramatically affected these two economies via real channels. Both countries reacted to the external shock by implementing several measures. However – thanks to the policies implemented during the period before the crisis – the Chilean government enjoyed more fiscal space and was able to introduce a stimulus package twice as large the Mexican one. In particular, Chile supported families with children via the expansion of the main social protection programme, additional cash transfers to the poorest families with children and passive labour market measures. In contrast, the worsening of fiscal conditions pushed Mexico into a fiscal consolidation process since 2010. As a result, child poverty dropped in Chile while it rose sharply in Mexico.
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Exploring the Late Impact of the Great Recession Using Gallup World Poll Data
Авторы): Goran Holmqvist and Luisa NataliДата публикации: октября 2014Больше МеньшеThis paper explores the use of Gallup World Poll Data to assess the impact of the Great Recession on various dimensions of well-being in 41 OECD and/or EU countries from 2007 up until 2013. It should be read as a complementary background paper to the UNICEF Report Card which explores trends in child well-being in EU/OECD countries since 2007/8. Overall the findings provide clear indications that the crisis has had an impact across a number of self-reported dimensions of well-being. Indeed, a strong correlation between the intensity of the recession and the worsening of people’s perceptions about their own life is recorded since 2007. Data also indicate that the impact has still not peaked in a number of countries where indicators were still deteriorating as late as 2013. A “League Table” is also presented where countries are ranked in terms of change between 2007 and 2013 for four selected Gallup World Poll indicators related material well-being, perceptions of how society treats its children, health and subjective well-being.
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Trends in Child Well-Being in European Union Countries During the Great Recession
Авторы): Luisa Natali, Bruno Martorano, Sudhanshu Handa, Goran Holmqvist and Yekaterina ChzhenДата публикации: октября 2014Больше МеньшеThe goal of this paper is to monitor the impact of the Great Recession on child well-being in countries of the European Union. We use data from the EU-28 plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey to document the change in children’s well-being from 2007/8-2012/3. We classify countries into ‘least’, ’moderately’ and ‘most’ exposed to the global recession and document trends in well-being outcomes for each of the three groups. We find a strong correlation between exposure to the crisis and reductions in child well-being since 2007/8. Trends in labour market outcomes for young people aged 15-24 are notable in that while declines are sharpest among countries most affected by the crisis, there is a decline in all countries, even those least affected. We also discuss individual countries’ performance on a selection of child outcomes through the use of League Tables (LT); these LTs rank countries, showing top and bottom performers, based on the progress/setback experienced over the period 2007/8-2012/3. These results should be interpreted as early evidence on child well-being during the crisis, since the study period covers only up to 2012/3 for most indicators, and only through 2011 for monetary poverty.
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The Repercussions of the Economic Recession in Greece on Adolescents and their Families
Авторы): Anna Kokkevi, Myrto Stavrou, Eleftheria Kanavou and Anastasios FotiouДата публикации: сентября 2014Больше МеньшеBackground: Greece is among the countries hit most severely by the recent global economic crisis. Given that poverty in childhood and adolescence can have lifelong implications, investigation of the impact of the crisis on various aspects of adolescents’ well-being is critical for guiding prevention policies. Objective: To examine the impact of the crisis on adolescents’ lives in Greece, along with the trends – before and during the crisis – in sociodemographic and well-being indicators. Methods: Data were drawn from three successive waves (2006, 2010 and 2014) of the HBSC survey in Greece. Stratified probability samples of between 3,600 and 4,900 students aged 11, 13 and 15 years old answered an anonymous questionnaire in their classrooms under the supervision of trained researchers. Data were compared by X2 tests taking account of the complex survey design. Results: The impact of the economic crisis is reflected in the increase of parental unemployment, tensions and fights within the family, constraints on going on holidays, and in fewer private lessons. Student’s life satisfaction has fallen. Older students report effects of the crisis more than younger ones. While an increase was noted in cannabis use among boys, smoking and alcohol consumption decreased in both genders. Conclusions: Findings enhance our understanding of the impact of the economic crisis on adolescents and families in Greece. These data may aid the shaping of policies to protect families and their offspring from the repercussions of the current crisis.
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