Claire Chapman
HDFS 311: Assignment #2
Child Poverty

Child poverty is a worldwide issue that is in desperate need for action and improvement. Poverty does not allow children the adequate environment to fully develop or sometimes to even survive. These children are hit hard by their circumstances and should have the right to a healthy upbringing. I will discuss Unicef’s definition of poverty, research about families, and the differences in gender across child poverty. The Unicef article, Children Living in Poverty, uses a definition of child poverty from The State of the World’s Children 2005 that states, “Children living in poverty experience deprivation of the material, spiritual, and emotional resources needed to survive, develop, and thrive, leaving them unable to enjoy their rights, achieve their full potential or participate as full and equal members of society.” They really wanted to emphasize the fact that poverty is not just of material needs, but also social, emotional, and spiritual needs as well. Poverty can be operationally defined through specifics of their nutrition, water, sanitation, health, shelter, education, and information. Unicef has defined a threshold for each one in order to collect data about it. One of the studies that was trying to find percentage of children that are severely deprived used stricter guidelines to really show the depth of poverty around the world. They found that around one billion children are living in conditions that are considered to meet at least one of the seven categories for severe deprivation. The definition of poverty is still in progress and will continue to change over time, but for now this is how organizations are defining it. Recent studies have found that assets have a very positive impact on the well-being of the child and that women and men differ in their spending habits. For example, Assets and Child Well-being in Developing Countries: A Research Review is an article that discusses a vast amount of research done on how the amount of assets a child’s family has on how the child turns out. It has founds that the largest gains of a child with assets were in the child’s health, education, and lowering the occurrence of child labor (Chowa et al., 2010). The Unicef article also discussed the importance of giving power over the money to the mothers because they are more likely to spend it on the children and essential needs like food. They found that men are more likely to spend money on things such as alcohol or tobacco that do not help the children. These findings help organizations know how to combat an issue as serious as child poverty. The part of this article that was most surprising to me was the fact that girls were much more likely to be impoverished than boys. I had never realized just how much discrimination based on gender there is in the world. The little girls were much more likely to not be in school, be apart of sex trafficking, and to be in the labor force at a young age. I was not expecting this gender difference and it definitely surprised me. These articles that I have mentioned really demonstrate the need for change in the world. Child poverty is extremely prevalent and needs to be addressed. After looking at the definition of child poverty, it’s impact on the family, and gender differences, we can see just how serious it is. These findings not only show us that we need to address the issue, but also help us discover how to we can make programs that will be successful.

Works Cited

Chowa, Gina, David Ansong, and Rainier Masa. "Assets And Child Well-being In
Developing Countries: A Research Review." Children and Youth Services Review
32.11 (2010): 1508-1519.