Multidimensional child poverty in Zimbabwe: Extent, risk patterns and implications for policy, practice and research

Despite significant improvements in measuring multidimensional child poverty, current research has mainly focused on developing poverty headcounts for all children simultaneously. Moreover, less attention has been devoted to understand the risk patterns of the deprivations children face. All this masks how child poverty affects differently aged and situated children. To help fill such knowledge gaps, this study employs the Bristol Approach to measure the extent and risk patterns of multidimensional child poverty among children ages five years and below in Zimbabwe using data from the 2015 Demographic and Health Survey (N = 6418). Fourteen deprivation items are selected and tested for validity, reliability and additivity to determine if they are ‘good’ measures of child poverty. Severe deprivation estimates are then established which indicate the extent of absolute child poverty among the children. The risk patterns of these conditions are examined too. Results reveal that all fourteen selected deprivation items are ‘good’ (valid, reliable and additive) measures of multidimensional child poverty among children ages five years and below in Zimbabwe. About 78% of these children are defined as severely deprived in early childhood development (ECD), 46% in water, 44% in healthcare, 40% in sanitation, 30% in shelter and 13% in nutrition. However, while there are no differences in risk of deprivation in healthcare and nutrition between deprived and undeprived children, there are risk differences in sanitation, water, shelter and ECD deprivation between deprived and undeprived children. Based on these results, the study derives several implications for policy, practice and further research.