More than half of children and adolescents in Argentina were living in poverty in 2025, with nearly a third going without adequate food, according to a report by the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA), underscoring the uneven social impact of President Javier Milei's austerity-driven economic overhaul.
The study found that child poverty stood at 53.6% last year, down from 59.7% in 2024, while extreme poverty affected 10.7% of minors, based on data from the Argentine Social Debt Survey.
Despite the decline, which coincided with a broader macroeconomic stabilisation under Milei's belt-tightening programme, the report cautioned against interpreting the figures as a lasting improvement. "We must not confuse a temporary improvement with the solution to a structural problem," the UCA said.
Milei took office in December 2023 promising radical economic reform by slashing public spending, eliminating the fiscal deficit and deregulating markets. These measures initially deepened Argentina's recession and sent inflation spiralling before a gradual stabilisation took hold. While dollar reserves improved and foreign investment began to recover under the libertarian government, the peso's effective depreciation and deep cuts to food, energy and transport subsidies fell hardest on low-income households, a distributional toll the UCA data suggest has not yet been reversed.
Using a multidimensional poverty index that includes access to food, housing, sanitation, healthcare, education and information, the report concluded that deprivation remains widespread. Food insecurity affected 28.8% of children and adolescents, including 13.2% facing severe conditions, above levels recorded for most of the previous decade.
The findings also pointed to record levels of distress-driven reliance on food assistance, reaching 64.8% of children. Coverage of the Universal Child Allowance, a flagship cash transfer scheme, reached 42.5% of minors in 2025, slightly below the previous year.
Healthcare access has also deteriorated, with nearly one in five minors failing to see a doctor or dentist at all in 2025 for financial reasons, a figure that rises to more than a quarter among teenagers. The obstacle is financial rather than logistical, the report's lead researcher Ianina Tuñón noted: even nominally free public healthcare carries indirect costs when parents must skip work to accompany their children. Dental care is the most acutely neglected area, with roughly one in six children lacking any access to a dentist, a neglect Tuñón said has lasting consequences for children's nutrition, self-esteem and overall wellbeing.
Mental health represents a further dimension of the crisis. More than one in six children between the ages of five and 17 showed signs of sadness or anxiety as perceived by their parents or guardians, rising to over a fifth among adolescents, with girls disproportionately affected. Children exhibiting such symptoms were nearly twice as likely to be assessed by their families as not learning effectively at school.
Educational quality also emerged as a concern, with nearly a third of children attending schools where teachers are frequently absent or classes regularly cancelled, a proportion that climbs to 44% among pupils from lower-income households and in the greater Buenos Aires area. One in ten children said they did not enjoy attending school, a figure that rose to more than one in six among adolescents from the poorest strata.
"These data reflect the persistence of structural deficits that condition children's development," the UCA concluded, noting that while conditions have improved compared with 2024, they remain above levels seen before Argentina's recent economic crises. The researchers argued that the country's obligations to its children extend well beyond income support, encompassing healthcare and education failings that are amenable to policy action regardless of fiscal conditions.
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