Who Are the Poor in the Developing World?

Castaneda, Andes ; Doan, Dung ; Newhouse, David ; Nguyen, Minh Cong ; Uematsu, Hiroki ; Azevedo, Joao Pedro

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: poverty;    measurement;    gender inequality;    primary education;    educational attainment;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7844
RP-ID  :  WPS7844

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper presents a new demographicprofile of extreme and moderate poverty, defined as thoseliving on less than $1.90 and between $1.90 and $3.10 perday in 2013, based on household survey data from 89developing countries. The face of poverty is primarily ruraland young; 80 percent of the extreme poor and 75 percent ofthe moderate poor live in rural areas. Over 45 percent ofthe extreme poor are children younger than 15 years old, andnearly 60 percent of the extreme poor live in householdswith three or more children. Gender differences in povertyrates are muted, and there is scant evidence of genderinequality in poor children's educational attainment. Asizable share of the extreme and moderate poor, 40 and 50percent, respectively, have completed primary school.Compared with the extreme poor, the moderate poor aresignificantly more likely to have completed primary schooland are less likely to work in agriculture. Afterconditioning on other individual and householdcharacteristics, having fewer than three children, havinggreater educational attainment, and living in an urban areaare strongly and positively associated with economicwell-being. The results reinforce the central importance ofhouseholds in rural areas and those containing large numbersof children in efforts to reduce extreme poverty, and areconsistent with increased educational attainment andurbanization hastening poverty reduction.