Publications

This research brief compares the properties of individual- and household-based multidimensional child poverty approaches. Specifically, it contrasts UNICEF’s Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) with the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. MODA focuses on children and is rooted in the child rights approach, while MPI has been developed for households and follows Sen’s (1985) capabilities approach. We demonstrate their similarities and differences using two recent Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys: Sierra Leone and Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR). The analysis suggests that MODA tends to produce higher multidimensional child poverty headcount rates than MPI, both because of the differences in the survey items used to construct the indicators of deprivation and because of how the indicators are aggregated and weighted.

Recent years have witnessed widespread acknowledgement in both academic and policy circles that children deserve a special focus in poverty measurement. It is now generally accepted that children have different basic needs from adults and are harder hit, both in the short- and long-term, when their basic needs are not met. The European Union (EU) has acknowledged the need for child-focused indicators in monitoring poverty and social exclusion and is currently in the process of developing, testing and comparing single indicators of child well-being across member states. This paper aims to add to this debate by providing a micro-analysis of the breadth of child poverty in the European Union, considering both the degree of overlap and accumulation of deprivations across monetary and multidimensional indicators of poverty. Using the 2007 wave of the EU-SILC data, the European Union (EU) monetary 'at-risk-of-poverty' indicator is compared with a range of child deprivation indicators at domain level in four EU Member States (Germany, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom). Overall, the paper’s findings provide a strong call for the need to take a multidimensional approach towards the measurement of child poverty in the EU context.