South Africa has made limited headway in reducing child poverty, with the majority of the country’s youngest citizens continuing to face overlapping hardships that income alone cannot capture.
According to Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), the proportion of children aged 0 to 17 who were multidimensionally poor declined from 60.8% in 2015 to 57.3% in 2023.
This is a reduction of just over three percentage points across eight years.
“Although this represents an improvement, it indicates that more than half of children continued to face multiple deprivations,” Stats SA noted in its report, Child Poverty in South Africa: Assessing Changes in Multidimensional Poverty Using the MODA Approach (2015-2023), released on Tuesday.
The analysis was produced in collaboration with UNICEF South Africa and the Social Policy Research Institute (SPRI), and draws on the 2022/23 Income and Expenditure Survey.
Young children made the most gains, but primary school-aged children remain the worst off
The report measures deprivation using seven dimensions of well-being – nutrition, health, education, protection, water and sanitation (WASH), housing, and access to information – and classifies a child as multidimensionally poor if they are deprived in at least three dimensions simultaneously.
Across all age groups, younger children aged 0 to 4 recorded the steepest decline in poverty, falling from 58.1% to 51.5%, a 6.6-percentage-point improvement.
Children aged 13 to 17 saw only marginal progress, with the share declining from 61.2% to 59.8%.
Primary school-aged children, however, remained the most deprived group throughout the period.
Stats SA found that its poverty rate fell by just 3.2 percentage points, from 62.5% to 59.3%.
“Despite this improvement, primary school-aged children continued to experience the highest levels of deprivation in both years,” the report stated.
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Where you live and how much your household earns determine your children’s chances
A child’s geography and household income remained powerful predictors of deprivation.
Children in non-urban areas were more than four times more likely to face multiple simultaneous deprivations than those in urban settlements, and those in non-metropolitan municipalities were consistently worse off than their counterparts in cities.
Children in households classified as monetarily poor were nearly twice as likely to be multidimensionally deprived.
Stats SA found that in 2023, 78.2% of children in poor households were multidimensionally deprived, compared with 37.1% of children in non-poor households.
Strikingly, the share of children who were multidimensionally poor but not income poor rose from 14.6% in 2015 to 18.9% in 2023.
“Improvements in income did not consistently translate into better access to essential services and living conditions,” Stats SA warned.
Limpopo, Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal continue to carry the heaviest burden
Provincial disparities remained stark. Limpopo recorded the highest rate of multidimensional child poverty in both years, declining from 82.4% in 2015 to 73.7% in 2023.
The Eastern Cape followed at 75.8% and KwaZulu-Natal at 71.9% in 2023.
Gauteng and the Western Cape consistently recorded the lowest deprivation rates, at 35.9% and 36.8% respectively.
At the metropolitan level, eThekwini, Mangaung, and Nelson Mandela Bay saw increases in child poverty between 2015 and 2023.
Meanwhile, the City of Tshwane and Buffalo City recorded notable declines.
Race and household education deepen the divide
Racial inequality in child deprivation persisted across the period.
Stats SA found that more than 62% of Black African children were multidimensionally deprived in 2023, compared with 38.1% of coloured children and roughly 9% of white children.
Children in households headed by someone with no formal education faced deprivation rates above 80%, while those in households with a university-educated head recorded rates below 16%.
“The highest deprivation levels were observed among children in larger households, households with no employed adults, and households headed by individuals with low or no education in both 2015 and 2023,” the report noted.
The Covid-19 pandemic compounded these inequalities, particularly for vulnerable children.
Stats SA cited research showing that lockdowns worsened access to nutrition, healthcare and protection, and increased children’s exposure to abuse and exploitation.
These effects continue to reverberate through the data.
Nutrition and safety are worsening, even as housing improves
While housing and access to information improved over the period, deprivation in nutrition and protection worsened across all age groups.
For toddlers aged 0 to 4, food insecurity rose from 41.5% to 49.2%, and safety deprivation increased from 18.5% to 27.2%.
Stats SA noted that by 2023, young children experienced the highest deprivation in waste disposal, distance to healthcare, food security, and shelter.
“While income poverty showed substantial improvement, multidimensional deprivation remains widespread and continues to affect a significant proportion of children,” the report stated.
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