REALLY SIMPLE STATS: the UNICEF GHANA internal STATISTICAL bulletin
Child
Poverty
INCLUDES A
QUIZ AT
THE END!
Issue 6, September 2015
Poverty measures:
Poverty headcount ratio: proportion of
the population that lives below the 'poverty
line', meaning that their income is lower
than what has been determined to be the
national monetary threshold for poverty.
Brought to you by the M&E team
What do we mean by Child
Poverty?
Poverty gap: a measure of both incidence
and depth of poverty, as it
calculates “how distant” are
the poor from the poverty
line. In technical terms, it
measures the mean shortfall
from the poverty line
(counting the non-poor as having zero
shortfall), expressed as a percentage of the
poverty line.
Almost three out of ten children in Ghana live
in poverty, as measured by the official and
widely used poverty indices described on the
left.
But if poverty is measured in monetary terms
In other words, it indicates the total (using income or expenditures as a proxy),
resources required to bring all the poor to shouldn’t all children be “poor” since they do not
the level of the poverty line (divided by the (and should not) generate any income?
number of individuals in the population).
Actually, poverty is measured at household
level, and it takes into account all people living
in a household, including the “dependents”, like
National Poverty Lines
children and older people who do not generate
In Ghana, poverty lines are an income, but whose standard of living still
expressed in Ghana Cedis per depends on the wealth of their family.
equivalent adult per year.
According to the GLSS VI, the For this reason, poor children are defined as
updated poverty lines for Ghana children who live in poor households. In Ghana,
are:
there are far more poor children than poor
 ABSOLUTE POVERTY: GHC 1,314 / adults because poor families in Ghana tend to
adult / year (equivalent to about $1.83 have a large number of children. Child poverty
per day)
causes a vicious circle of poverty: a poor child is
more likely to grow to become a poor adult
because s/he is less likely to be healthy and

EXTREME POVERTY: GHC 792.05 / educated, and his/her children will also suffer,
adult / year (equivalent to about $1.10 and so on.
per day)
A poverty line can be defined as that value
of consumption necessary to satisfy
minimum subsistence needs. However,
when determining it difficulties arise in
specifying these minimum subsistence
needs as well as the most appropriate way
of attaining them.
Snapshot of Child Poverty
trends in Ghana
Child poverty has declined by 7.9 percentage
points, from 36.3 percent in 2005/06 to 28.4
percent in 2012/13. In absolute terms, this
means that 3.65 million children live in poverty
as of 2012/13 versus 4.07 million in 2005/06.
More children (28.4 %) are living in poverty
than the average population (24.2%). This is
equivalent to almost three out of every ten
children.
Of them, one lives in extreme poverty. Overall,
that’s 1.27 million children of Ghana.
The minimum expenditure to meet
adequate calorie requirements is generally
used as the basis for an extreme poverty
line, based on the information about
quantities of foods consumed by households
and the calorie contents of these foods.
Source: GLSS VI Poverty Profile
Child poverty remains considerably higher in
rural areas (41.8 percent) than in urban areas
(13.1 percent).
Computing Child Poverty:
The Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS)
Living Standard surveys are common tools to
measure the levels of well-being of a nation. In
line with the international practice, the Ghana
Living Standards Survey is a nationally
representative sample survey undertaken to
periodically measure the living conditions of
Ghanaians. The survey also provides the
required data for examining the poverty profile
of households and the decomposition between
different groupings: urban/rural, locality, region
and socio-economic status.
There are more boys (29.9%) living in poverty
than girls (26.7%).
Almost a third of children from households
where the head has had no or only
primary/middle school education are poor.
The Sixth round of the
Ghana Living Standard
Survey (GLSS6) was
conducted in
2012/2013. Previous
rounds of the survey
have been conducted
in 1987/88, 1988/89,
1998/99 and
2005/2006.
The measure of the standard of living is based on
household consumption expenditure, covering
food
and
non-food
items,
including
housing. Monetary poverty is then calculated
based on consumption per adult equivalent data
using standard poverty indices, namely poverty
headcount rate (incidence), poverty gap (depth)
and severity of poverty.
These indices are then applied according to the
number of children aged 0-17 living in
households that are estimated as being poor.
The child poverty head count then provides the
number of children living in households with
incomes below the respective poverty line.
One third of children attending public schools
are poor (33.4%)
Over half of all children in poverty live in
households who drink from unsafe water
sources. One in two poor children do not have
access to any toilet facility.
Adapted from: GLSS VI Poverty Profile, 2014; GLSS VI
Child Poverty Report, 2015
Globally…
Vast number of children
continue to live in
poverty, a problem that
afflicts both developed
and
developing
countries alike.
In low and middle-income countries, 39 percent
of children still struggle to survive in ‘extreme
poverty’ – defined internationally as living on
less than $1.25 a day – including some 569
million children aged 18 and under.
One in ten children are extremely poor – this
Children constitute nearly half of the world’s
means that their household cannot even afford
extreme poor.
to purchase adequate food. When compared
with the incidence of extreme poverty in the
overall population, children are more likely to
be extremely poor (9.9 percent versus 8.4
percent in the total population).
Extreme Child Poverty
Percentage of people living on less than $ 1.25
a day by age:
Overview of child poverty and extreme child
poverty headcounts in Ghana: 2005/06 and
2012/13
Source: GLSS V and VI data
To know more, visit:

http://www.childtrends.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/11/200911ChildreninPoverty.pdf

http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy

/files/Issue_Brief_Child_Poverty_in_the
_post2015_Agenda_June_2014_Final.pdf

http://www.unicef.org/sowc05/english
/poverty.html

http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/files
/child
Gender disparities in Child
Poverty
By gender, there are more boys living in
poverty than girls. In 2005/06, 38.3 percent of
boys lived in poverty which declined to 29.9
percent in 2012/13. For girls, 34.3 percent of
them lived in poverty in 2005/06 compared to
26.7 percent in 2012/13. Also, there are more
boys (10.8 percent) living in extreme poverty
than girls (9 percent).
Overview of child poverty and extreme child
poverty headcounts in Ghana by gender of the
child: 2005/06 and 2012/13
_poverty_in_the_developing_world.pdf
Or contact our in-house experts from the
ACMA team:


Sarah Hague, Chief of Social Policy –
[email protected]
Source: GLSS V and VI data
Peter Luigi Ragno, Social Protection
Specialist – [email protected]
Regional inequalities
Contact Us:
This newsletter was brought to you by the
UNICEF Ghana M&E team:

Anna: [email protected]

Clemens: [email protected]

Sylvester: [email protected]
The Upper West Region still registers the
highest rates of child poverty and extreme child
poverty in the country, at 74.3 and 49.1 percent
in 2012/13, respectively. Greater Accra Region
continues to have the lowest number of
children living in poverty where child poverty
levels fell further from 16 percent in 2005/06 to
7.2 percent in 2012/13; extreme child poverty
was more than halved in GAR from 6.4 percent
down to 2.3 percent in 2012/13.
The only region in Ghana experiencing a
worsening of child poverty over the selected
QUIZ!!
Which region of Ghana saw an
increase in Child Poverty from
20.8 to 26 percent?
period is Volta Region. Child poverty increased
by 20.8 percent to 26 percent in 2012/13, which
is still slightly below the national average of 28.4
percent. Extreme child poverty also worsened
slightly by 1.1 percent to 7.3 percent, although
remaining below the national average of 9.9
percent.
Child poverty headcount by region and by place
of residence, 2005/06 and 2012/13
A. Volta Region
B. Upper West Region
C. Central Region
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Source: GLSS V and VI data
Urban versus Rural poverty
Child poverty remains considerably higher in
rural areas, where almost one more than two
out of every five children live in poverty (41.8
percent), than in urban areas, where one in
eight children live in poverty (13.1 percent) as
of 2012/13. It is important to note that while
child poverty fell by almost 6 percent in rural
areas, it declined only marginally by 1.2 percent
in urban areas between 2005/06 and 2012/13.
Children from farming households are up to
four times more likely to be poor than children
from non-farming households.
Child poverty headcount by employment status
of the household head, 2005/06 and 2012/13