With the 52.9%, girls, boys and teenagers are the poorest of the urban poor across the country. The Chaco province leads this dramatic indicator with 74.6%, followed by Formosa with 69.9% and San Luis with 64.4%.
There are just over 13 million children under 17 across the country. From this it follows that at the national level there are 6.8 million girls, boys and adolescents living in poor houses, because these households have incomes below those of a basic basket.
Thus, of the 18 million poor nationwide, more than 37% are under 17. And out of 10 boys and young people of that age, 5 live in poor houses.
Children and young people find themselves in this situation despite the collection by families of the Universal Child Allowance (AUH) which covers 4.3 million children and adolescents, the food card and other social plans.
The figures correspond to microdata for the 2022 quarter that INDEC released last Friday. Localities in the interior of each province were incorporated into this measurement. with more than 2,000 inhabitants, where wage and income levels, precariousness and informality are generally higher than those of large cities or agglomerations.
These microdata were elaborated by Martin Rozada, director of the Masters in Econometrics at the Universidad Di Tella. And they note that with an average urban poverty of 38.9%, those under 17 are the most beaten.
In the province of Córdoba this indicator is 54.1%, in the province of Buenos Aires it is 52.5% and in Santa Fe it is 51.3%. In the CABA, 26.5%.
Consequently, without these plans, destitution and child and adolescent poverty would be much higher, exceeding 70%, even setting the limits of the social plans.
Since the INDEC measure implements the collection of half of the Christmas bonus in the third quarter of each year, it is discounted that poverty rates among under-17s are expected to be higher in the fourth quarter, raising the measure for the second half of 2022 to over 53%. In the first half of 2022 it was 51.5%.
This dimension of child and youth poverty has been dragging on for decades, exacerbated by the 2018/2019 recession and the deterioration of incomes due to the pandemic and the quarantine, and despite the recovery of activity in 2021 and 2022, it continues at dramatic levels.
Is that these indicators confirm that it has a structural character, marks a present reality and is a factor in the reproduction of poverty. Because the boy and young man who is born and grows up deprived of food, home, health or education has a compromised future. And also the whole society.
The poor boy or adolescent is poor because his parents are. This means that most children and adolescents live in families supported by unemployed, precarious regular workers or with low and informal wages, underemployed and self-employed who also work informally, without social security coverage. All of this amplifies the persistence and dimension of poverty.
Although children under 17 are notable for having the highest percentage of poor people, poverty has also increased among other age groups. No age group could escape loss of income or social decline.
AQ
Source: Clarin
