1. Children in the world: A statistical overview

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1. Children in the world A statistical overview

• Children in Developing Countries
• Lecture course by Dr. Renata Serra

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A note of caution re data

• All statistics contain errors
• Data from developing countries are fewer, contain
  many missing observations, and are of poorer
  quality than average
• Statistical capacity degree of development
• At the same time, we have to work with the data
  we have

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Quick comparison by world regions
S Asia SSA EAsiaP MENA LAC Industr. countries
Tot Pop (mill.) 1,483 713 1,952 379 556 961
lt18 (mill.) 587 361 572 154 199 204
IMR U5 84 169 33 54 31 6
Primary enrolment 81m 75f 63m 59f - - 83m 77f 89mf - -
GNI p.c. US 691 764 2,092 2,627 4,078 35,410
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Some facts

• Children represent over 1/3 of the world
  population
• Out of 6.5 billion people in the world in 2005
  children under 18 were 2,183 millions
• but up to 50 of the population in the poorest
  countries
• Indicators of child well-being do not correlate
  too well with per-capita income
• For instance, compare SA with SSA or EAP with
  LAC

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1. Infant mortality rates

• IMRu1/u5 measures the number of children who die
  before reaching age of 1 (or of 5) per 1000 live
  births
• IMRs are a fundamental indicator, which captures
  many components of well-being
• IMR U5 is particularly bad in SSA
• Out of the 30 countries with the worst ranking
  only 2 are not from SSA (Afghanistan and
  Cambodia)
• 11 African countries have IMRU5 gt 200
• 46 countries in the world have IMR gt 100 (5 are
  from Asia and 1, Haiti, from LAC)
• See Ranking from SOWC 2006 (UNICEF 2006)

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Infant mortality rates (contd)

• Countries which have halved IMRu5 during
  1990-2005 from over to under 100, include
• India, Bangladesh, Mongolia and Nepal in Asia
• Bolivia in LAC and Ghana in SSA
• Brazil has also halved IMRs to 30 in the same
  period

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2. Nutrition

• Undernourishment insufficient calories (energy)
  to meet minimum physiological needs. On average,
  gt2,100 kilocalories per day per person are needed
• Malnutrition/Undernutritioninability to
  maintain natural bodily capacities such as
  growth, pregnancy, lactation, learning abilities,
  physical work and resisting and recovering from
  disease
• Measured not by how much food is eaten but by
  physical measurements of the body
• Stunted 2 SD below average height-for-age
• Wasted 2 SD below average weight-for-height
• Weight for age is also measured

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Nutrition (contd)

• Malnutrition is most often linked to lack of
  appropriate nutrients
• Iron deficiency is the most prevalent form of
  malnutrition worldwide, affecting an estimated
  1.7 billion people, half of whom suffer from
  anemia
• Vitamin A deficiency weakens the immune systems
  of a large proportion of under-5 increasing their
  vulnerability to disease
• Protein deficiency is also very common among poor
  children (big-bellied children)
• Child malnutrition is of high incidence in
  central and eastern Africa but the majority of
  undernourished children are found in South Asia
• 30 of newborns have low weight in SA 15 in SSA
  (Table 2 UNICEF 2007)

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Under-weight prevalence among under-5 children in
LDCs
Source UNICEF, State of the World Children 2007,
figure 2.4
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3. School enrolment
Source Figure 2.2 Unicef, SoWC 2006
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4. Other measures of deprivation
Source Figure 2.3 Unicef, SoWC 2006
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5. Child poverty

• Poverty is multi-dimensional concept
• Insufficient access to goods and services
• Lack of freedoms (from hunger, diseases, anxiety,
  violence)
• Being victim of violence and exploitation
• Poverty concepts may have different meanings
  through space and time
• Income poverty is often used to make
  international comparisons
• Absolute poverty lines are used for developing
  countries (1 a day or 2 a day)
• Relative poverty lines are used for developed
  countries (children living in households with lt
  50 of median HH income)

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Child poverty in OECD countries
Source Unicef SoWC 2006, fig. 2.4