This note shows that based on headcountpoverty rates, at the household level, households withelderly members are roughly equally poor to non-elderlyhouseholds, though with variation when using more detailedcompositions, and the elderly are less poor than children in98 percent of the countries sampled when comparing differentage groups. Further, as a share of the poor, elderly averageonly 10 percent, children 36 percent, and adults 54 percent.Moderate equivalence adjustments result in a four percentagepoint change in the number of countries with children betteroff than elderly.(A separate note provides detailedsensitivity analysis). These results can be seen as astarting point for further analysis that would look at thereasons behind differences between countries as well as agesub-groups within countries. The findings providepreliminary evidence that households with elderly, andespecially elderly individuals are often not the most poor.The analysis is relevant to countries considering newpolicies or reforms of existing programs targetingparticular age groups, such as the elderly or children.
PDF
download
878987797
028-85220240
