IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/8001.html

Are poor individuals mainly found in poor households ? evidence using nutrition data for Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Brown,Caitlin Susan
  • Ravallion,Martin
  • Van De Walle,Dominique

Abstract

Antipoverty policies in developing countries often assume that targeting poor households will be reasonably effective in reaching poor individuals. This paper questions this assumption, using nutritional status as a proxy for individual poverty. The comprehensive assessment for Sub-Saharan Africa reveals that undernourished women and children are spread widely across the distribution of household wealth and consumption. Roughly three-quarters of underweight women and undernourished children are not found in the poorest 20 percent of households, and around half are not found in the poorest 40 percent. The mean joint probability of being an underweight woman and living in the poorest wealth quintile is only 0.03. Countries with higher overall rates of undernutrition tend to have a higher share of undernourished individuals in nonpoor households. The results are consistent with evidence of substantial intrahousehold inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Brown,Caitlin Susan & Ravallion,Martin & Van De Walle,Dominique, 2017. "Are poor individuals mainly found in poor households ? evidence using nutrition data for Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8001, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:8001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/427491489094206188/pdf/WPS8001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Asfaw, Abraham Abebe, 2018. "The distributional effect of investment in early childhood nutrition: A panel quantile approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 63-74.
    2. Maria Eugénia Ferrão & Amélia Bastos & Maria Teresa G. Alves, 2021. "A Measure of Child Exposure to Household Material Deprivation: Empirical Evidence from the Portuguese Eu-Silc," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 14(1), pages 217-237, February.
    3. Mónica Pinilla-Roncancio & Sandra García-Jaramillo & Ana Lorena Carrero & Catalina González-Uribe & Amy Ritterbusch, 2020. "Child vs. Household MPIs in Colombia: Do they Identify the Same Children as Multidimensionally Poor?," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 13(3), pages 777-799, June.
    4. Nicolas Berman & Lorenzo Rotunno & Roberta Ziparo, 2025. "Sweet Child of Mine: Parental Income, Child Health and Inequality," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 135(672), pages 2455-2482.
    5. Dunstan Matekenya & Francis Mulangu & David Newhouse, 2025. "Malnourished but Not Destitute: The Spatial Interplay Between Nutrition and Poverty in Madagascar," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(2), pages 554-569, March.
    6. Ambel,Alemayehu A. & Belete,Getachew Yirga & Fiala,Oliver, 2023. "Children and the Fiscal Space in Ethiopia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10452, The World Bank.
    7. Bevis, Leah E.M. & Naschold, Felix & Rao, Tanvi, 2019. "An unequal burden: Intra-household dimensions of seasonal health in Tanzania," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    8. Dizon,Felipe Jr Fadullon & Josephson,Anna Leigh & Wang,Zetianyu, 2022. "Intra-Household Inequality in Food Consumption and Diets in the Philippines," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10170, The World Bank.
    9. Freude, Boipelo & Henning, Christian H. C. A., 2019. "Is women's undernutrition synonymous with household food insufficiency? Evidence from Northern Ghana," Working Papers of Agricultural Policy WP2019-08, University of Kiel, Department of Agricultural Economics, Chair of Agricultural Policy.
    10. Michele Giannola, 2024. "Parental Investments and Intra-household Inequality in Child Human Capital: Evidence from a Survey Experiment," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(658), pages 671-727.
    11. Berman, Nicolas & Rotunno, Lorenzo & Ziparo, Roberta, 2020. "Sweet child of mine: Income, health and inequality," CEPR Discussion Papers 14444, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Maria Sassi, 2020. "Evidence of Between- and Within-Household Child Nutrition Inequality in Malawi: Does the Gender of the Household Head Matter?," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 32(1), pages 28-50, January.
    13. Alemayehu A. Ambel & Getachew Yirga Belete & Oliver Fiala, 2024. "Fiscal Policy and Child Poverty in Ethiopia," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 17(1), pages 221-259, February.
    14. Echeverría, Lucía, 2020. "Modelos colectivos de consumo y distribución intra-hogar. Teoría y aplicaciones," Nülan. Deposited Documents 3832, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, Centro de Documentación.
    15. Coates, Jennifer & Patenaude, Bryan N. & Rogers, Beatrice Lorge & Roba, Alemzewed Challa & Woldetensay, Yitbarek Kidane & Tilahun, Addisalem Fikre & Spielman, Kathryn L., 2018. "Intra-household nutrient inequity in rural Ethiopia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 82-94.
    16. Getachew Yirga Belete, 2022. "Children’s multidimensional deprivation, monetary poverty and undernutrition in Ethiopia," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 1087-1118, December.
    17. Schnitzer,Pascale & Stoeffler,Quentin, 2021. "Targeting for Social Safety Nets : Evidence from Nine Programs in the Sahel," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9816, The World Bank.
    18. Lentz, Erin C., 2018. "Complicating narratives of women’s food and nutrition insecurity: Domestic violence in rural Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 271-280.
    19. Hernandez, Paola Buitrago & Sardon, Daniela Maquera & Nopo Aguilar, Hugo Rolando & Rubiano Matulevich, Eliana Carolina, 2025. "Gender and Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Analysis through the Life Cycle," Policy Research Working Paper Series 11260, The World Bank.
    20. Sylvie Lambert & Philippe De Vreyer, 2017. "By ignoring intra-household inequality do we underestimate the extent of poverty?," Working Papers DT/2017/05, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:8001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.