SPPA Adjunct Research Professor Antoine Dedewanou is co-author on UNICEF’s “Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth: Innocenti Report Card 18” published December 2023.
Abstract : In a time of general prosperity, more than 69 million children live in poverty in some of the world’s richest countries. Poverty is often defined by income. But for most children, poverty is about more than just money. It is about growing up in a home without enough heat or nutritious food. Poverty means no new clothes, no telephone and no money for a birthday celebration. For the eighteenth edition of the Innocenti Report Card, UNICEF Innocenti examined child poverty in the high-income and upper middle-income countries in the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This Report Card provides an assessment of the current state of child poverty and the progress – or lack of progress – that these countries made towards eliminating it. Overall, the percentage of children who live in poverty in 40 countries of the EU and OECD, dropped by about 8 per cent during a period of about seven years – which translates to 6 million fewer children in poverty. However, the rates of child poverty vary. For example, in Denmark, Finland and Slovenia, about 1 in 10 children lives in poverty. In Bulgaria, Colombia, Italy, Mexico, Romania, Spain, Türkiye and the United States of America more than 1 in 4 children lives in poverty.