252 million young children in developing countries are undernourished, multidimensionally poor, or both, new global study finds
Oxford, 15 September 2026 – Nearly half of all children under 5 in developing regions are poor, undernourished, or both, according to a report published today by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at the Universityof Oxford. The report sheds new light on deprivations in child nutrition and school attendance across the developing world revealing important information on the scale and complexity of challenges facing children.
The study is based on data from the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (Global MPI) computed by OPHI and the United Nations Development Programme. Going beyond the single deprivations children face in nutrition andschooling, the study also examines whether they experience broader multidimensional poverty at home. Specifically, itassesses whether they live in households deprived in at least a third of the ten indicators of the Global MPI relating to health, education and living standards.
This report delivers the first global multidimensional study of children’s experiences of poverty within the home basedon observed household survey data, covering 97 countries for undernutrition and 108 for school attendance.
Scale of challenges facing children in developing countries
The report highlights the urgency of child poverty in developing regions:
- Across 97 countries with available data (covering 518 million children), shockingly, nearly half of all children under 5 (252 million) are undernourished, multidimensionally poor, or both.
- Around one-third of children under 5 are undernourished, meaning they are stunted or underweight.
- Globally 96 million undernourished children also live in multidimensional poverty (1 in 5 children).
- Each multidimensionally poor and undernourished child experiences on average four to five deprivations in addition to being undernourished themselves.
- Across 108 countries with available data, 13% of the 1.04 billion school-aged children are out of school (136 million). Over 80% of all out-of-school children are also multidimensionally poor (110 million).
- Each poor out-of-school child experiences an average of five additional deprivations.
- Of the 1.04 billion school-aged children covered, 31% are out of school, multidimensionally poor, or both.
“We were shocked by how tightly clustered the intensity of poverty is for children,” said Sabina Alkire, Director of OPHI and co-author of the study, “the 96 million children under 5 who are both undernourished and multidimensionally poor experience, on average, four to five deprivations in addition to undernutrition. Similarly, the110 million children who are both multidimensionally poor and out of school experience, on average, five additional deprivations across the other nine global MPI indicators. The data reaffirms the need for multisectoral approaches to development programmes such as social protection”.
Over one-third of poor children experience intra-household inequality
The report examines whether all children within the same household are all disadvantaged or whether all are not disadvantaged. It finds glaring intrahousehold disparities. Over one-third of poor children experience intra-household inequality. That is, over one-third of poor children under five live in a household in which at least one child is undernourished and another is not. Similarly, over one-third of poor children live in households where some school-aged children are going to school and others are not, pointing to a poignant need to plan integrated programmes that recognise how poverty may be experienced unequally within the home.
82% of poor out-of-school children live in households where no woman has completed six years of schooling
The report provides an up to date yet stark picture of women’s educational disadvantage across developing regions. In multidimensionally poor homes, over two-thirds of poor children – whether well-nourished or undernourished – live in a household where no woman has completed six years of schooling. By comparison, just over half live in householdswhere no man has completed six years of schooling. The gap is even wider among poor children who are out of school: around 82% live in households where no woman has completed six years of schooling, compared with 62% who live in households without a man who has reached the same level.
67% of girls in Afghanistan are out of school compared with 47% of boys
The report also finds that while more boys are undernourished than girls, and globally more girls are out of school than boys, the gender disparities in school attendance vary considerably across countries. In 19 countries, representing 56% of all out-of-school children, girls face higher rates of school exclusion than boys. The largest gender gaps are found in Afghanistan, where the share of girls not attending school is 20 percentage points higher than the share ofboys (67% compared with 47%), followed by Pakistan (30.2% and 22.3%), Central African Republic (29.3% and 21.5%), and Guinea (41.3% and 33.7%).
First-generation learners
More positively in 108 countries, 71 million children aged 10–17 years old are pioneer children – the only ones in theirhousehold to complete six years of schooling. Half of these pioneer children live in South Asia (35 million), where one in nine children aged 10–17 is a pioneer child.
By country, 28 million pioneer children live in India, over 3 million in Bangladesh, 2 million in Pakistan, 837,000 in Nepal and 508,500 in Afghanistan. Supporting these young people could mobilise significant change.
India, Bhutan and Bangladesh have higher shares of pioneer girls among girls aged 10–17 than there are pioneerboys among boys aged 10–17. Only in Afghanistan are there higher levels of pioneer boys than girls among childrenof each group – 7% of boys versus 4% of girls – and half of Afghanistan’s pioneer children are also multidimensionally poor.
Yet not all children share this progress. Globally, 9% of pioneer children live in homes where at least one other school-aged child is out of school.
How this will help
The report offers a new lens for understanding child nutrition and schooling in the context of other deprivations at the global level.
Professor Sabina Alkire said of the report “this is the first study that demonstrates at scale the possibility and importance of using existing individual data alongside household data to inform evidence-based programmes that meaningfully address cycles of poverty seeded by undernourished and out-of-school children. Amartya Senrecognised nutrition and schooling to provide both instrumental and intrinsic value. We must work together at the local level in the fields of measurement and policy to address these systemic deprivations that threaten to trap generations of children in poverty”.
Download the report here (from 15/09/26)
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About OPHI: The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) is a research centre based in the University of Oxford working on the multidimensional measurement of poverty and well-being to help guide effective policymaking around the world.
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