Title: Reducing poverty in the first 18 years of life: the importance of measurement for getting it right
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: In line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), MDGs and formulation of national Children's Acts, child poverty has moved up the policy agendas of many countries. A concurrent potential increase in resources to invest in children requires knowledge on how to spend those most effectively in order to capitalise on childhood's 'window of opportunity'; the period of life with the highest returns on human capital investments. The way in which child poverty is currently measured, however, presents us with a narrow and partial picture. Despite an expanding body of research on child poverty, current practice is still biased towards measuring static and single dimensions of child poverty, primarily using monetary indicators as a proxy to capture other areas of deprivation. Cross-sectional research shows that assumptions about the extent to which poverty measures can serve as proxies for each other are often incorrect (Baulch & Masset, 2003; Klasen, 2000; Nolan & Whelan, 2010; Roelen, Gassmann & Neubourg, 2011). My research in Viet Nam and four European countries (France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK) showed that monetary and multidimensional measures of poverty identify different groups of children as being deprived, and that a failure to measure child poverty from a combined perspective leaves children with particular vulnerabilities neglected (Roelen et al, 2011; Roelen and Notten, 2011). Despite growing evidence on the mismatches of static child poverty outcomes, we know little about the extent to which different measures provide different pictures of child poverty dynamics and the underlying drivers of such differences. As a result, policy is designed and targeted on the basis of incomplete information, leading to deficient identification of vulnerable children and an inadequate response to their needs. This proposed research responds to these concerns by using monetary and non-monetary measures to analyse child poverty dynamics, assessing overlaps and mismatches between those measures and investigating reasons for potential differences. It will cover new ground and provide fresh insights in two different case study countries, namely Ethiopia and Viet Nam, and aims to influence academics, policy-makers and practitioners to contribute positively to the reduction of child poverty. Four different research questions will be addressed: (1) To what extent do different poverty measures identify different groups of children as being poor?; (2) To what extent do different poverty measures identify different groups of children as moving in and out of poverty over time?; (3) What are the drivers of mismatches between cross-sectional child poverty outcomes when using different measures?; and (4) What are the drivers of different patterns of child poverty dynamics when using different measures? This research will combine the collection and analysis of qualitative data with the analysis of secondary panel survey data. The increasing availability of panel survey data in developing countries (see Baulch, 2011) with information beyond consumption and expenditures allows for an extension of current research on child poverty. My work on child poverty dynamics in Viet Nam (Roelen, 2010) and Ethiopia (Roelen & Camfield, 2011) made it clear that the analysis of longitudinal child poverty from a multidimensional perspective and using mixed methods approaches remains particularly unexplored. The collection of qualitative data collection will inform the quantitative analysis and triangulate and deepen its findings. Given the momentum around the issue of child poverty in both academia and the policy arena, this research will benefit and influence a wide range of stakeholders in Ethiopia and Viet Nam as well as developing and developed countries.


Research activity codes: 1.4 METHODOLOGIES AND MEASUREMENTS;1.2 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC PROCESSES
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE