Intra-Household Inequalities in Child Rights and Wellbeing: A barrier to progress?

This paper attempts to measure the extent of inequality between boys and girls within households and its contribution to overall levels of inequality in child wellbeing. Without better knowledge of this area, our view of progress towards eliminating child poverty and the realization of children’s rights could be skewed; the children whose outcomes are below their household average would be made invisible.

The paper proposes a new methodology to measure inequality among boys and girls within households. It analyses the distribution of outcomes between girls and boys for four indicators: nutrition, birth registration, school attendance and time spent doing work and chores, with data obtained from UNICEF’s Multiple Indicators Cluster Surveys. It assesses total inequality and its within-household component for two periods for up to 20 developing countries, depending on data availability.