Profiles
Margherita Squarcina
Social and Economic Policy Researcher (Former title)
Margherita Squarcina conducts quantitative analysis on child poverty. Her work supports the development of new methodologies for child poverty research, government engagement and research uptake as well as data analysis on monetary and multidimensional child deprivations. Prior to joining UNICEF, she has worked for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Development Economics, and she expects to defend her Ph.D. thesis in early 2023. She holds a M.Sc. in Development Economics from the University of Florence.
Publications
Publication
War and Economic Downturn: The impact of the war in Ukraine and the subsequent economic downturn on children and families in Europe and Central Asia
The war in Ukraine triggered an economic shock in countries in Eastern and Central Asia, a region that has been visited by multiple economic shocks in the past decades. For the children and families The shock featured a spike in the prices of commodities including food and fuel. As a result, poor families who spend a greater proportion of their incomes on necessities – such as food and fuel – were the hardest hit. The result was greater risk of poverty, weakened school attachment and increased infant mortality, among others.
This UNICEF Innocenti Research Brief shares projections about the fallout of this crisis on poverty, schooling, infant mortality and the purchasing power of families. It also reviews the social protections put in place in response to the crisis and makes recommendation for future social protection responses.
Publication
Children and the Cost-of-living Crisis: How food and energy inflation has increased poverty in households with children in the European Union
Children and families throughout the European Union are facing a cost-of-living crisis that has eroded living standards to such an extent that up to an additional 3 million children in 26 EU countries are now living in conditions equivalent to relative income poverty.
For families and children in the EU, the cost-of-living crisis is being experienced primarily through higher prices for food and energy. In addition, increasing interest rates make borrowing less affordable, placing a growing strain on the sustainability of businesses, mortgages, loans and government debt.
This research brief presents the first results of an analysis of how the cost-of-living crisis has affected the poverty experienced by households with children in the European Union (EU). It takes account of sharply increasing food and energy prices to calculate the additional number of children living in poverty, in real terms, due to the crisis. The brief also recommends that policymakers and governments protect children and families with steps that include expanding and index-linking child cash benefits to cover the needs of families, implementing guarantees to provide free meals for children in schools and providing services that prevent ‘holiday hunger’ when schools are closed in the summer months.