Page 37 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 4

CPS2109 Khalid S. et al.
health and nutrition, and housing conditions which are more decent offering
more comfort and security, etc.
This development has resulted in an overall improvement of the children’s
socioeconomic welfare. The analysis of the deprivation composite index
highlights the continuing decline in the situation of children deprivation in all
ages, over time. Thus, this index decreased by almost half, from 0.295 in 2001
to 0.128 in 2014, an average annual decrease of about 7.0% during this period.
This improvement has concerned the two residence areas: between those
dates, the average level of deprivation decreased from 0.115 to 0.052 in urban
areas and 0.47 to 0.221 in rural areas.
The spatial distance (urban / rural) of the average level of deprivation
shows that deprivation remains a rural phenomenon.
2- Multidimensional Indices of Poverty
With emphasis on the fringe of children subject to deprivation in at least
30% of the size of the welfare area, it appears that the multidimensional child
poverty recorded strong downward trend. The prevalence of poor children
increased from 43.6% in 2001 to 24.1% in 2007 and 11.0% in 2014. With these
rates, the number of children in poverty decreased from 4.9 million children in
2001 to 1.24 million children in 2014, an average annual reduction of 10.0% of
the total number of poor children.
By controlling the area of residence, the prevalence of multidimensional
poverty decreased from 11.8% in 2001 to 6.1% in 2007 and 2.4% in 2014 in
urban areas. These indices are respectively 74.6%, 46.9% and 22.0% in rural
areas. It shows that child poverty remains predominantly a rural phenomenon.
The difference between these two indices reflects the high concentration of
child poverty in rural areas.
With regard to children vulnerability to impoverishment, the risk of falling
into poverty reached 23.4% in the countryside, against 5.6% in the urban areas.
However, it is clear that if the risk of being vulnerable to multidimensional
poverty declined in urban areas, 7.2% in 2001 versus 5.6% in 2014, it has,
however, increased in rural areas from 12.5% to 23.4% between 2001 and
2014.
The rate of children escape from poverty is at different speeds across
regions of the country. Between 2001 and 2014, the largest decline was
recorded in the regions where the phenomenon is more widespread: it fell
from 59.8% to 16.5% in "Marrakech-Safi", 46.4% to 10.0% in "Tanger-Tetouan-
Al Hoceima", from 44.6% to 14.6% in "Béni Mellal-Khénifra".
The examination of the correlates between the conditions of children and
the conditions of their family homes shows that multidimensional poverty
affects more 5 to 6 years old children, a poverty rate of 21.0%, while the 7-14
years old children are the least affected by this form of poverty (7.3%). Despite

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