This document discusses how demographics affect measures of child poverty in Africa. It finds that adjusting poverty rates based on household size and composition reduces the gap between child and adult poverty rates. Larger households and those with more children experience bigger reductions in measured child poverty. While the adjustments make poverty comparisons across African countries with different demographics more valid, some child-adult gap still remains due to real differences in well-being.

1. Do Demographics Matter for
African Child Poverty?
Yele Batana, World Bank, ybatana@worldbank.org
John Cockburn, Université Laval & PEP, john.Cockburn@ecn.ulaval.ca

2. OUTLINE
 Introduction
 Main demographic features
 Methods of poverty adjustment
 Age group poverty comparisons
 Between-country poverty comparisons
 Sensitivity analysis
 Conclusion

3. INTRODUCTION
• Strong correlations between per capita poverty and
demographics (household size and composition).
• National poverty lines are often established based on a
reference household with given size and composition.
 First, the basic caloric requirement of an adult is defined
 An average food consumption structure is used to derive the
required food expenditure
• The international poverty line is determined as mean of
national lines for the 15 poorest countries.
• Failure to address the issue may lead to underestimate
poverty, especially for African children.

4. INTRODUCTION
• How to obtain more accurate child poverty measure and
make more appropriate between-country comparisons?
• Deaton (2003) and Ravallion (2015) suggest the use of a
reference household as a pivot for equivalence approach.
• Newhouse et al (2017) estimate child global poverty using
this suggestion  child-adult gaps remain significant.
• What happens when focusing on African region where
demographic disparities are high among and within
countries?

5. MAIN DEMOGRAPHIC FEATURES
• There are significant disparities between countries in
terms of demographics.
• On average size varies from 3.5 to 9.5 members.
Figure 1: Average household sizes and standard deviations in African countries

6. MAIN DEMOGRAPHIC FEATURES
• The composition of household, measured by the average
proportion of children varies between countries.
• Share of under-18 varies from 20% to over 50%.
Figure 2: Proportion of children in African countries

7. METHODS OF POVERTY ADJUSTMENT
• Equivalence scales
 Traditional equivalence scales
 Deaton (2003) and Ravallion (2015) suggestions
 The search for a "pivot" household
 Pivot based on the average caloric requirement of 2100 cal
 Pivot using international poverty line
Eq
ref
Eq
ref
Ny
y
N N
 

8. AGE GROUP POVERTY COMPARISONS
• With adjustment between groups of child disappear.
• Child-adult gap is reduced from 11.4 to 6.7 percentage
points.
Age groups
Per capita
approach
FAO/WHO
equivalence
scale
Square-root
equivalence
scale
0-4 52.8 46.4 43.8
5-9 50.1 46.6 43.0
10-17 48.8 46.8 40.2
0-17 50.4 46.6 42.1
+18 39.0 39.9 37.0
All 44.5 43.2 39.5
Table 1: Poverty rates in Africa by age group ($1.90 a day, 2011 PPP)

9. AGE GROUP POVERTY COMPARISONS
• Breakdowns by household size confirm gap reductions.
• The gap is lowest for households of 3 or 4 members.
• No clear monotonous trend with size but growing trend
with number of children.
Figure 4: Differences in poverty between children and adults

10. BETWEEN-COUNTRY POVERTY COMPARISONS
• Countries with high average household sizes and child
shares  high reductions in child poverty.
(Mali, Senegal, Niger, Burkina Faso, etc.)
Figure 5: Differences between adjusted and initial poverty rates for children by country

11. BETWEEN-COUNTRY POVERTY COMPARISONS
• Mixed results for adult poverty, with half of countries
experiencing reductions while the other knows increases.
Figure 6: Differences between adjusted and initial poverty rates for adults by country

12. BETWEEN-COUNTRY POVERTY COMPARISONS
• Child-adult gaps reduced by more than half in 9 countries.
(Cape Verde, Chad, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Liberia, Mali,
Mauritania, Niger, and South Sudan)
Figure 7: Differences in poverty between children and adults by country

13. SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
• Child poverty is sensitive to scale factor but not to child
discount factor.
• Child-adult poverty gap is sensitive to both factors.
Figure 8: Child poverty in Africa by child
discount and scale factors
Figure 9: Child-adult poverty gap by child
discount and scale factors

14. SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
• This confirms previous results, and the sensitivity of adult
poverty to child discount factors.
Figure 10: Child and adult poverty incidence by child discount or scale factor

15. CONCLUSION
• Poverty may be biased for some household groups when
demographics are different from that of the reference.
• As a result, poverty is not be comparable between
countries with various demographics as in Africa.
• The real challenge is to properly remove the bias caused by
demographics on poverty measurement.
• Adjustment is not about canceling child-adult poverty gap,
but should to capture the real inequality in wellbeing
distribution among children and adults.