Professor Alberto Minujin, Executive Director of Equity for Children, participated in a UNICEF Innocenti conference in Florence, where he presented Mind the Gap: Inequality and Child Poverty.
His presentation examined how inequality shapes children’s lives and why progress in child wellbeing must be assessed by whether it reaches those facing the greatest disadvantages.
Looking beyond the averages
Improvements in children’s survival and access to education are essential achievements. Yet national and global averages can hide persistent differences between children from wealthier and poorer households.
Understanding these gaps helps reveal where progress remains uneven and where public policy needs to do more.
Minujin drew on research examining disparities in child mortality and wellbeing over several decades, exploring whether improvements have been shared equitably both across countries and within them.
The findings highlight the human consequences of unequal progress: children’s chances of survival continue to depend, in part, on the circumstances into which they are born.
Inequality and access to education
Education was another important focus of the presentation.
Research comparing school attendance across household wealth groups helps show how economic disadvantage can limit children’s opportunities. Looking beyond overall enrollment or attendance figures makes it possible to identify which children continue to face barriers.
Understanding poverty over time
The presentation also explored how poverty during childhood relates to education and employment in young adulthood.
Drawing on the Young Lives study, which follows children over time, Minujin discussed approaches to understanding persistent poverty as well as movement into and out of poverty.
Following children’s experiences over many years can provide a fuller picture than measuring poverty at a single moment.
Bringing lived experiences into the conversation
Alongside quantitative research, Minujin introduced In First Person, a storytelling project sharing the experiences of Latin American migrant women in New York City.
These accounts bring attention to dignity, care and family life, connecting discussions of inequality with people’s lived experiences.
Connecting evidence with action
A central policy implication of the presentation was the need to connect evidence with action.
Measuring child poverty becomes more useful when findings inform the design, implementation and monitoring of public policies. Accessible data, examined across different groups of children, can help governments identify unmet needs and assess whether their efforts are reducing inequalities.
Minujin’s presentation invited a closer look at who benefits from progress. Building fairer opportunities for children requires sustained attention to those whose experiences remain hidden behind the averages.
