Keetie Roelen

Measuring Child Poverty and Well-Being: a literature review

Due to the acknowledgment that children deserve special focus in poverty measurement, the measurement of child poverty and well-being has received increasing attention within the academic and policy arena. The dependence of children on their direct environment for the provision of basic needs, the child-specific requirements in terms of their basic needs and the request for specific information for the formulation of child-focused policies are important reasons calling for the development of child poverty approaches. A range of approaches has been developed in the last decade to meet the need for a measurement tool especially geared to capture children and internalize their specific needs. Each of these approaches differ with respect to their chosen identification mechanism, aggregation methodology and data requirements. Decisions made on all these elements involve a set of advantages and disadvantages and have consequences for the usefulness of the approach to serve a specific purpose or audience. This review provides a structural overview of the current state of literature on the measurement of child poverty and well-being. We conclude that there are no perfect approaches for the measurement of child poverty and that each approach is the result of a specific conceptual framework in accordance with the availability of resources.

The Importance of Choice and Definition for the Measurement of Child Poverty—the case of Vietnam

Increased attention to childrens’ special position within poverty measurement resulted in the development of various child poverty approaches in the last decade. Analysis shows that their development processes involve a similar set of steps and decisions, predominantly taken in the same sequence. However, it also becomes apparent that many of these decisions are made implicitly rather than explicitly, resulting in unclear and non-transparent underlying constructs. Consequently, child poverty approaches often lack a solid and robust foundation and are misinterpreted and misunderstood when used for analytical and policy purposes. This paper distills a generic construction process from the analysis of existing child poverty approaches, presenting a tool for clear and transparent development of such approaches. It is then applied to the case of Vietnam, using household survey data, to illustrate its practical use and develop a Vietnam-specific child poverty approach. Findings suggest that 37% of all children are poor, whilst observing a large rural-urban divide but no significant differences between boys and girls.

Chronic Poverty in Rural Ethiopia through the Lens of Life Histories

Abstract Studying chronic poverty using retrospective qualitative data (life-histories) in conjunction with longitudinal panel data is now recognized to provide deep and reliable insights. This paper uses three rounds of panel data and life-histories collected by Young Lives, a longitudinal study of childhood poverty, to identify factors that contribute to households becoming or remaining poor in rural Ethiopia. It combines a case-centred and a variable-centred approach, analysing and comparing the experiences of individual households (cases) using qualitative and quantitative techniques and interrogating these findings by looking at attributes of households (variables) across a larger sample. The substantive findings on poverty ‘drivers’ and ‘maintainers’ support those of previous studies: rainfall, illness, debt, exclusion from the main social protection scheme. But by mixing different types of data and analysis, the paper shows that combinations of factors rather than single events drive households into poverty, and that household characteristics play an important role. The primary contribution of the paper is methodological as it presents a novel method of using life-histories to investigate chronic poverty in rural Ethiopia by generating or testing hypotheses/findings on poverty drivers and maintainers.

How effective can efficient be? Social assistance in Kosovo and what it means for children:

The primary objective of the majority of social assistance schemes is to reduce poverty, and targeting is often considered an important tool to reach this objective more efficiently and effectively. This paper investigates the efficiency and effectiveness of a targeted benefit scheme that uses a hybrid form of targeting and is subject to a tight budget constraint, namely the social assistance scheme in Kosovo. In recognition of the long-term detrimental and negative consequences of child poverty, we focus particularly on the scheme’s impact on children. A mixed method approach is used to investigate both the economic and non-economic costs and implications. Findings suggest that the social assistance scheme is highly efficient but excludes many poor children. Poverty impacts are limited and the scheme does not resonate well with its recipients. Policy simulations indicate that incremental budget increases have the potential to greatly reduce child poverty when implemented hand-in-hand with amendments to the current social assistance scheme.

The ‘Twofold Investment Trap’: Children and their Role in Sustainable Graduation

Despite the overall aim of graduation to lift people out of poverty in the long term, programmes remain largely focused on achieving short- to medium-term change. This article postulates that graduation programmes should be more aspirational as graduation can only be truly sustainable when it is an intergenerational process. This requires greater consideration of the role of children in graduation programmes as households with children face an inter-temporal decision-making dilemma that places them in a ‘twofold investment trap’; households are required to manage resources available from (1) adult household members and (2) children, and seek an optimal allocation of resources between investments in livelihoods and in child wellbeing. Available evidence shows that this is an almost impossible balancing act. This article proposes conceptual and programmatic considerations to ensure that graduation programmes take full account of the situation of households with children and thereby work towards sustainable and intergenerational graduation.

Real Time Monitoring for the Most Vulnerable: Concepts and Methods

In assessing the value of different approaches to real‐time monitoring for the most vulnerable, an initial requirement is to set out a conceptual framework that provides at least some degree of clarity as to what precisely is meant by ‘real time’, ‘monitoring’ and ‘vulnerable’– all terms that can be highly context‐specific. That is the first task addressed here. The second is to consider potential sources of data that might be used to undertake real‐time monitoring and assess their advantages and disadvantages for the present purpose. Four general approaches are considered – community‐based participatory monitoring, sentinel sites, routine data systems and rapid surveys – and selected examples from the literature are given to illustrate the potential use and limitations of their applications. -super-1

Beyond averages: Child well-being in Kazakhstan

With the majority of poor people now living in middle-income countries and the post-millennium development goals framework taking shape, the issue of inequality has gained prominence in many policy debates. Although detailed assessments of poverty and well-being are crucial for formulating adequate policies, all too often such assessments focus on average outcomes. In this paper we present an analysis of child well-being for Kazakhstan that moves beyond averages in two ways: first, it explicitly reports on the situations of different socioeconomic groups of children in society; second, it applies a method that is diversified by age group and thereby accounts for differences among children across stages of childhood. Kazakhstan illustrates the need for more nuanced and in-depth analyses, given the significant but far from universal economic growth within the country. We find that there are large discrepancies in child well-being outcomes between different regions and that high levels of economic output do not necessarily go hand in hand with improved outcomes in terms of poverty and well-being. We argue that child well-being studies need to be more in depth, thereby ensuring that levels of inequity across socioeconomic groups and between children in different age groups are given due consideration.

A Global Measurement Approach versus a Country-Specific Measurement Approach - Do They Draw the Same Picture of Child Poverty? The Case of Vietnam

Child poverty can be measured using approaches that aim to make cross-country comparisons on a regional or global scale or to capture a country’s specific poverty context. The first can be referred to as a global approach and the second as a country-specific approach. These underlying rationales for the design and use of a child poverty approach have great implications for their theoretical and conceptual frameworks. This paper investigates whether the conceptual differences between the global and country-specific approaches also draw a different empirical picture of child poverty when applied to a specific country. Vietnam is used as a case study for the application of both approaches and analysis of results. The methodology used identifies children at two different levels of poverty, namely severe deprivation and absolute poverty. Findings suggest that the country-specific approach is more inclusive than the global approach, identifying a larger percentage of children as poor and capturing the large majority of those children identified under the global approach. Poverty figures of both approaches further convey a varying picture of child poverty when considering the different dimensions of vulnerability. The demographic composition of the poverty groups by either one or both of the approaches does not display significant differences.

Where Next for Social Protection

The rapid ascendancy of social protection up the development policy agenda raises questions about whether its current prominence will be sustained, or whether it will turn out to be just another development fad. What trajectory will social protection follow, which actors will drive it forward and what will be the main issues and challenges? This article reports on a small foresight study designed to address the question: ‘Where next for social protection?’ A scenario-building exercise revealed that there is no single linear pathway for social protection, but multiple highly context-specific trajectories subject to change as political ideologies and institutional capacities shift. A ‘wind-tunnelling’ exercise highlighted the importance of a country’s political regime as a fundamental determinant of which social protection policies will be adopted. Better understanding of political processes is needed to protect gains made in social protection against possible reversals when the political climate shifts against pro-poor redistributive policies.

Sticks or carrots? Conditional cash transfers and their effect on child abuse and neglect

In recent years, conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have gained unprecedented popularity in the fight against poverty, and can now be found across the globe. Experience is most long-standing and widespread in Latin America, with almost every country in the region running a CCT program. CCT programs aim to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty by making cash transfers conditional upon certain requirements that promote human capital development. Conditions largely pertain to education, health, and nutrition for children and include school enrollment and attendance, immunization and regular health check-ups, and weight monitoring. Programs have been widely applauded for their positive effects on various outcomes for children and short- to medium-term poverty. They are considered particularly appropriate in a context with demand barriers that limit or provide unequal access to services such as education and health care.