What is Child Poverty?

Poor children lag behind other children in terms of health, are more likely to do worse in school, become teen parents, and experience poverty as adults (Duncan and Brooks-Gunn 1997; Federal Interagency Forum 1998; Gottschalk, McLanahan, and Sandefur 1994). Moreover, trends in child poverty, according to official statistics, are not encouraging. After a period of improvement in the 1960s, child poverty worsened over the last three decades. The percent of children living in families with incomes below the poverty line declined from 27.3 percent in 1959 to 14.0 percent in 1969. Over the next decade the child poverty rate fluctuated around this level, slowly inching upward. By 1981 the poverty rate was up to 20 percent, and has since remained at this higher level. In 1997, 19.9 percent of children in the U.S. were poor (Dalaker and Naifeh 1998).

The trend in poverty among working-age adults has followed a similar pattern, though the magnitude of the rates are considerably lower. Poverty for persons ages 18-64 declined from 17.0 percent in 1959 to 8.7 percent in 1969, remained fairly steady in the 1970s, then rose to modestly higher levels in the 1980s and 1990s. As of 1997, the poverty rate for this age group was 10.9 percent. Poverty among the elderly, in contrast, has declined relatively steadily from 35.2 percent in 1959, to 10.5 in 1997 (see Figure 1).

As of 1997, children comprised about 40 percent of the poverty population, though only about a quarter of the total population. Child poverty has risen and remained high for the last three decades for a number of reasons. The growth in the number of children in single-parent families is clearly an important factor (Devine and Wright 1993). The poverty rate for children in female-headed families was 49.0 percent in 1997, while the comparable figure for children in dual-headed families was just 9.5 percent (Dalaker and Naifeh 1998). Labor market changes, such as the rise in earnings inequality and declining wages of young adults (many of whom have children) have also played a role, as has the decline of cash transfers in real dollars (Danziger and Gottschalk 1995; Danziger and Weinberg 1994; Hill 1985).

17th October: United Nations International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is celebrated every year throughout the world. It was officially recognised by the UN in 1992, but the first commemoration of the event took place in Paris, France in 1987. 100,000 people gathered on the Plaze of Human Rights and Liberties at the Trocadéro to honour victims of poverty, hunger, violence and fear.

Quick Facts

• Number of children in the world:
  2.2 billion

• Number in poverty
  1 billion (every second child)
  Shelter, safe water and health
  For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are:                                                                                              640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3)
  400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5)
  270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7)

• Children out of education worldwide
  121 million

• Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn't happen.

• Survival for children
  Worldwide,10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy)
  1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation Health of children Worldwide,2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized
  15 million children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS (similar to the total children population in Germany or United Kingdom)

• According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.” That is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children under five years of age, each year.

• “The lives of 1.7 million children will be needlessly lost this year [2000] because world governments have failed to reduce poverty levels”

Sources:
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Facts.asp

More about poverty

Recent Facts of Poverty Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day. Read More

Reasons Why does poverty appear? Why so many people live in poverty? Find out here. Read More

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