MP Premadasa’s child poverty figures add up

To emphasise the need for concentrated government efforts to address child poverty, MP Premadasa claimed that (i) 25% of children in this country suffer from (income-based) poverty, and (ii) 42% of children are experiencing multidimensional poverty.
To check these claims, FactCheck.lk consulted poverty statistics provided by the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS), the World Bank’s (WB) 2023 Poverty & Equity Brief on Sri Lanka, and Sri Lanka’s Multidimensional Poverty Index 2019 published by UNICEF.
Child income poverty: WB estimated the poverty rate in Sri Lanka to be 11.3% in 2019, and 25% in 2023. I This estimate uses a poverty line based on the daily income required for an individual in Sri Lanka to consume goods worth USD 3.65 in the United States. The WB does not report child poverty specifically.
The latest available DCS poverty statistic is 14.3% for 2019, which is a little higher than the WB estimate for the same year. The DCS also reported child poverty to be 16.8% for those between 0-17 years of age in 2019. It is reasonable to expect child poverty to be higher than overall poverty, as households with more children are likely to have less in average earnings per person.
Therefore, on the WB statistic as well, child poverty can be expected to be above 25% in 2023, and consistent with MP Premadasa’s claim.
Child multidimensional poverty: Sri Lanka’s child Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) captures deprivations experienced by children aged 0-4 years in areas such as education, health, standard of living and child development. A report released in 2023, based on 2019 data, cited child multi-dimensional poverty as 42.2%.
WB and UNICEF statistics support MP Premadasa’s claims on child poverty. Therefore, we classify his statement as TRUE.
Additional Note: The two statistics the MP cites apply to different age groups of children. The 25% income poverty statistic applies to children aged 0-17. The MPI statistic applies only to children aged 0-4, it does not estimate multidimensional poverty of children aged 5-17 years. 
*FactCheck.lk’s verdict is based on the most recent information that is publicly accessible. As with every fact check, if new information becomes available, FactCheck.lk will revisit the assessment.

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