Forty million children are living in extremely poor households, the World Bank has disclosed. The bank noted that most children in extreme poverty lived in middle-income countries, with the total number of poor children amounting to 179.4 million.
It said, “Economies by income: In absolute numbers, most children living in extreme poverty live in middle-income countries, 179.4 million children (14.9 per cent in lower middle and 2.2 percent in upper middle income in extreme poverty) – including 52.2 million children in India (11.5 per cent) and 40 million children in Nigeria (37.9 per cent) living in extremely poor households.”
The World Bank revealed this in its September study, ‘Global Trends in Child Monetary Poverty According to International Poverty Lines,’ co-authored with the United Nations Children’s Fund.
Extreme child poverty, according to the Washington-based bank, is more widespread in unstable and conflict-prone areas. According to the bank, around 38.6 percent of children (164.7 million) in countries afflicted by violence and fragility live in extremely poor homes, compared to 10.1 percent of children in non-fragile nations (168.7 million).
However, the number of children living in severe poverty reduced by an estimated 63.3 million between 2013 and 2019, from 383 million to 319 million, with the slowest recorded decline in absolute numbers of children occurring between 2013 and 2016.
It explained that the poverty estimates for 2020, 2021 and 2022 were ‘nowcasted’—that is, gross domestic product growth rates were used to forecast household incomes, assuming all households experience equal growth in percentage terms in per capita consumption or income.
