A deeply disturbing and highly revealing study from the Oxford University in England has shown that the population of India in poverty is quite a bit greater than one may think, including at least half of the country’s children below the age of eighteen.

One hundred and three countries with income from low to middling rates were studied in the survey done by Oxford. Children, referring to all people under the age of eighteen, were found to be about 34% of the population. However, out of the impoverished population, children under eighteen made up 48%.

This study reveals disturbing information that children, in comparison to adults, are disproportionately impoverished, including under the measurements of the different dimensions of poverty. 1,800,000,000 children in these 103 countries were surveyed as the latest figures in the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index or MPI.

They captured severe deprivations faced by each person at the individual level, with respect to education, health, and living standards. Those classified as MPI poor are deprived in a third or more often indicator, with the indicators being nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, improved sanitation, water safe for drinking, electricity, flooring, and other assets.

The intensity of poverty is distinguished based on how many areas from which the person is deprived. Those deprived in multiple factors were labelled as multi-dimensionally poor, and two out of every five children, making a total of 689,000,000 children, were classified as this.

Furthermore, half of Southern Asia’s children and two-thirds of Sub Saharan African children are also multi-dimensionally poor, and in thirty-six countries, including in India, half of all the children are MPI poor. Even worse conditions show up in countries such as Ethiopia, Niger, and South Sudan, whereas many as nine out of every ten children are MPI poor.

This has brought a wakeup call to the world on how many people are deprived of the basic needs of living.

The international community especially takes into account the situation of children facing these deprivations, who will be the future of our countries and our world.

Image by billy cedeno from Pixabay (Free for commercial use)

Image Reference: https://pixabay.com/photos/poor-india-asia-poverty-people-2463625/