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Global extreme poverty rates for children, adults and the elderly

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  • Batana, Yélé
  • Bussolo, Maurizio
  • Cockburn, John

Abstract

Chen and Ravallion’s estimates of global extreme poverty rates are well known. This note, by considering how these rates vary by age group, reaches two important and policy relevant conclusions and emphasizes a central avenue for future research. The first is that child extreme poverty rates are 50% higher than adult ones and almost twice those of the elderly. This result depends on assuming that all individuals in a household have the same resource needs and no economies of scale exist, as in the World Bank standard approach. Conversely, if conservative estimates of economies of scale and individual discount factors are adopted, global extreme poverty rates and the child–adult gap are much smaller than the Chen and Ravallion estimates. These findings highlight the policy importance of research efforts towards understanding how needs vary within a household and with its size.

Suggested Citation

  • Batana, Yélé & Bussolo, Maurizio & Cockburn, John, 2013. "Global extreme poverty rates for children, adults and the elderly," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(3), pages 405-407.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:120:y:2013:i:3:p:405-407
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2013.05.006
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Lanjouw, Peter & Ravallion, Martin, 1995. "Poverty and Household Size," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(433), pages 1415-1434, November.
    2. Coulter, Fiona A E & Cowell, Frank A & Jenkins, Stephen P, 1992. "Differences in Needs and Assessment of Income Distributions," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 77-124, April.
    3. Martin Ravallion & Shaohua Chen & Prem Sangraula, 2009. "Dollar a Day Revisited," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 23(2), pages 163-184, June.
    4. Ferreira, Francisco H.G. & Ravallion, Martin, 2008. "Global poverty and inequality : a review of the evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4623, The World Bank.
    5. Shaohua Chen & Martin Ravallion, 2010. "The Developing World is Poorer than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight Against Poverty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1577-1625.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Gindling, T.H. & Hasnain, Zahid & Newhouse, David & Shi, Rong, 2020. "Are public sector workers in developing countries overpaid? Evidence from a new global dataset," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    2. Ravallion, Martin, 2015. "On testing the scale sensitivity of poverty measures," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 88-90.
    3. Ingutia, Rose & Rezitis, Anthony N. & Sumelius, John, 2020. "Child poverty, status of rural women and education in sub Saharan Africa," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    4. Brown, Caitlin & Calvi, Rossella & Penglase, Jacob, 2021. "Sharing the pie: An analysis of undernutrition and individual consumption in Bangladesh," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    5. Newhouse, David & Suárez Becerra, Pablo & Evans, Martin, 2017. "New global estimates of child poverty and their sensitivity to alternative equivalence scales," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 125-128.
    6. Bose-Duker,Theophiline & Gaddis,Isis & Kilic,Talip & Lechene,Valérie & Pendakur,Krishna, 2021. "Diamonds in the Rough? : Repurposing Multi-Topic Surveys to Estimate Individual-Level Consumption Poverty," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9661, The World Bank.
    7. Echeverría, Lucía, 2022. "Sensibilidad del análisis de la pobreza a las escalas de equivalencias. Una aplicación para Argentina," Nülan. Deposited Documents 3789, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, Centro de Documentación.
    8. Oliver Fiala & Enrique Delamónica & Gerardo Escaroz & Ismael Cid Martinez & José Espinoza-Delgado & Aristide Kielem, 2021. "Children in Monetary Poor Households: Baseline and COVID-19 Impact for 2020 and 2021," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 161-176, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Global poverty; Children; Elderly;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty

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