Child Deprivation, Multidimensional Poverty and Monetary Poverty in Europe

Abstract

The Innocenti Research Centre (IRC) was established in Florence, Italy in 1988 to strengthen the research capability of the United Nations Children"s Fund (UNICEF) and to support its advocacy for children worldwide. The Centre helps to identify and research current and future areas of UNICEF"s work. Its prime objectives are to improve international understanding of issues relating to children"s rights and to help facilitate full implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in both developing and industrialized countries.IRC is the dedicated research hub of the UNICEF Office of Research, which provides global leadership for UNICEF"s strategic research agenda around children. The Office aims to set out a comprehensive framework for research and knowledge within the organization, and for all those working on global children"s issues. Through strengthening research partnerships with leading academic institutions and development networks, the Office will create greater synergies, and will leverage additional resources and influence in support of efforts towards policy reform in favour of children.IRC"s publications are contributions to a global debate on child rights issues and include a wide range of opinions. For that reason, the Centre may produce publications that do not necessarily reflect UNICEF policies or approaches on some topics. The views expressed are those of the authors and/or editors and are published by the Centre in order to stimulate further dialogue on child rights.The Centre collaborates with its host institution in Florence, the Istituto degli Innocenti, in selected areas of work. Core funding for the Centre is provided by the Government of Italy, while financial support for specific projects is also provided by other governments, international institutions and private sources, including UNICEF National Committees.For further information and to download this or other IRC publications, please visit the IRC website at www.unicef-irc.org. Abstract. Together with the Innocenti Working paper on relative income poverty of children in rich countries (Bradshaw et al, 2012), this paper on multidimensional child poverty and child deprivation forms the background studies on which the Innocenti Report Card 10 is based (Measuring Child Poverty: New league tables of child poverty in the world"s rich countries). The paper focuses on child deprivation in Europe and studies the degree to which it is experienced by children in 29 countries using a child specific deprivation scale. The paper discusses the construction of a child deprivation scale and estimates a European Child Deprivation Index for the 29 countries using 14 specific child related variables made available by the child module of the EU-SILC 2009 survey. The 29 countries are ranked according to the degree of child deprivation: the results show considerable differences between the countries. The (non-)overlap between child deprivation and child monetary poverty is considerable but limited. In general the results indicate where policy int...