https://www.unicef.org/reports/state-of-worlds-children/2025#download
Child poverty today
In a world of plenty, too many children are suffering as poverty strips them of their rights and endangers their futures.
Poverty is commonly understood as a lack of access to financial resources.
Every day, 412 million children wake up in extreme monetary poverty, surviving on less than $3 per day.
Children are more than twice as likely as adults to live in extreme monetary poverty. Because their bodies and minds are still developing, children are also more vulnerable to the effects of poverty, with potentially life-long consequences for their well-being.
But monetary poverty tells only part of the story.
Poverty also needs to be understood in terms of the deprivations children experience in their daily lives – in areas like housing, nutrition, clean water, sanitation, education, and healthcare.
More than 1 in 5 children in low- and middle-income countries are severely deprived in at least two vital areas critical for their health, development and well-being.
Sanitation is the most widespread severe deprivation, with 65 per cent of children lacking access to a toilet in low-income countries, 26 per cent in lower-middle income countries, and 11 per cent in upper-middle income countries.
For children, poverty undermines their health and development, limits their ability to learn, and leads to weaker job prospects, shorter lives, and higher rates of depression and anxiety.
For societies, poverty undermines future economic prosperity and by depriving communities of hope, it creates conditions in which violence and extremism can thrive.
Understanding poverty requires looking beyond household finances to examine how individuals, families, communities and nations contribute to impact children's experiences of poverty.
It can start with listening.
