The root causes of exclusion

Children in the least developed countries are most at risk of missing out.

© UNICEF/ HQ00-0140/Shehzad Noorani

A girl stokes a cooking fire at home in Cambodia.

The poorest countries tend to have more young people living in them than richer ones, and in both poor and rich countries, the poorest families tend to have more children. This means that large numbers of children around the world are living in poverty.

Poverty can be a result of many different factors, but people in rural areas are more likely to be poor than those from urban areas, and within urban areas, those living in slums are often as poor as those from rural areas.

Whether they live in rich or poor countries, children from poorer families are more likely to be working and missing out on an education that could help them find better opportunities and escape from poverty in the future. Their lack of access to education, information, life skills and a decent standard of living also makes them more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, both as children and when they grow to be adults.

Look at the graph below. You can see that children living in the poorest countries are more likely to be out of school.