Report No. 03.10.22 - Child Poverty in South Africa, A Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis, 2015

Child multidimensional poverty, 2015

This report is based on data collected from the Living Conditions Survey (LCS) of 2014/15. It adopts the United Nations Children Fund's (UNICEF's) Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) methodology to measure multidimensional child poverty among children aged 0 to 17 years. The South African MODA has seven dimensions (i.e. Housing, Protection, Nutrition, Health, Information, WASH (Drinking water source, Sanitation and Waste disposal), and Education/Child development) and 14 indicators. The methodology incorporates the life-cycle approach to reflect the different needs of children in various stages of their development (early childhood: 0-4 years, primary childhood: 5-12 years and adolescence: 13 to 17 years). A child is classified poor if s/he is deprived in at least three of these dimensions.

The report found that about 62,1% of children aged 0-17 years are multidimensionally poor in South Africa. Disaggregating this age group further, the results indicate that children aged 5 to 12 years have the highest rate at 63,4%, followed by those in the age group 13 to 17 years at 63,4%. Children aged 0 to 4 years had the lowest multidimensional poverty rate at 59,9%. On average the multidimensionally poor children suffer from 4 out of 7 deprivations across all age groups. More than 8 out of 10 children across all age groups experience multiple deprivations, i.e. number of deprivations greater than one (1).

The results indicate that higher rates of child poverty are found among children living in rural areas (88,4%) and in non-metropolitan areas (73,7%) compared to 41,3% of those in urban areas and 39,6% in metropolitan areas. The Housing, WASH (drinking water source, sanitation and waste disposal), Health and Child development dimensions are found to be the major contributors to the poverty situation of children aged 0 to 4 years. On the other hand Education, Housing, WASH (drinking water source, sanitation and waste disposal) and Health dimensions are major contributors to the poverty situation of children in groups 5 to 12 years and 13 to 17 years in South Africa.

The results further indicate that higher rates of child poverty are found among children from bigger households (i.e. those with seven or more household members), households where there are many children, households where there are no adults employed and households where the household head has no education or low levels of education. Black African children (68,3%) are more likely to be in poverty compared to other population groups. In addition, children that are single orphans where only a mother is alive have higher poverty rates compared to single orphans where only a father is alive. Double orphans have higher multidimensional poverty rates compared to other children. The results also indicate that within age group 0 to 4 years, child poverty is high where children's births are not registered.

The report also found that monetary child poverty is lower as compared to multidimensional child poverty. The proportion of children living in money-metric poverty is 51,0% whereas multidimensional child poverty rate is 62,1%. The results further show that there is a high positive correlation between multidimensional poverty (as measured using MODA methodology) and money-metric poverty. The multidimensional poverty rate for money-metric poor children is almost twice that of non-poor children across all age groups. About 4 out of 10 children are both multidimensionally and money-metric poor, 2 out of 10 children are multidimensionally poor only, while one out of 10 children are money-metric poor only. Almost 3 in 10 children are neither multidimensionally nor money-metric poor. This pattern is found overall and in all the three age groups analysed.