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AUTHOR(S) Alessandro Carraro, Lucia Ferrone
Multidimensional child poverty defines children who experience a state of poverty that is more complex than that defined by a unidimensional measure of poverty, but encompasses child material needs and human rights, in a holistic way.
The definition of child poverty agreed by the UN General Assembly was used by Gordon, Townsend, and their colleagues from the University of Bristol for their study on child poverty in the developing world (Gordon et al. 2003). It gives full weight to material deprivation as the main element of child poverty, stating that children living in poverty are deprived in multiple domains of their lives (i.e., nutrition, water and sanitation, education, shelter, and protection among others) and that the lack of goods and access to services can represent a severe threat for their growth and development (United Nations General Assembly 2007).
Multidimensional child poverty encompasses the various deprivations experienced by children in their daily lives....
AUTHOR(S) Gustavo Angeles, Sudhanshu Handa, Amber Peterman, et al...
AUTHOR(S) Brian J. Hall, Melissa Garabiles, Jacobus de Hoop, Audrey Pereira, Leah Prencipe, Tia Palermo
AUTHOR(S) Lucia Ferrone, Yekaterina Chzhen
AUTHOR(S) Yekaterina Chzhen, David Gordon, Sudhanshu Handa
AUTHOR(S) Lucia Ferrone, Marlous de Milliano
AUTHOR(S) Yekaterina Chzhen, Zlata Bruckauf, Emilia Toczydlowska, Frank Elgar, Conception Moreno-Maldonado, Gonneke W.J.M. Stevens, Dagmar Sigmudova, Geneviève Gariépy
AUTHOR(S) Yekaterina Chzhen, Lucia Ferrone
AUTHOR(S) Jacobus de Hoop, Tia Palermo, Lisa Hjelm, Sudhanshu Handa
Poverty is a chronic stressor that can lead to poor physical and mental health. This study examines whether two similar government poverty alleviation programs reduced the levels of perceived stress and poverty among poor households in Zambia.
Secondary data from two cluster randomized controlled trials were used to evaluate the impacts of two unconditional cash transfer programs in Zambia. Participants were interviewed at baseline and followed over 36 months. Perceived stress among female caregivers was assessed using the Cohen Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Poverty indicators assessed included per capita expenditure, household food security, and (nonproductive) asset ownership. Fixed effects and ordinary least squares regressions were run, controlling for age, education, marital status, household demographics, location, and poverty status at baseline.
Cash transfers did not reduce perceived stress but improved economic security (per capita consumption expenditure, food insecurity, and asset ownership). Among these poverty indicators, only food insecurity was associated with perceived stress. Age and education showed no consistent association with stress, whereas death of a household member was associated with higher stress levels.
In this setting, perceived stress was not reduced by a positive income shock but was correlated with food insecurity and household deaths, suggesting that food security is an important stressor in this context. Although the program did reduce food insecurity, the size of the reduction was not enough to generate a statistically significant change in stress levels. The measure used in this study appears not to be correlated with characteristics to which it has been linked in other settings, and thus, further research is needed to examine whether this widely used perceived stress measure appropriately captures the concept of perceived stress in this population.
AUTHOR(S) Yekaterina Chzhen