Nearly one in three school-aged children across developing countries is either out of school, living in multidimensional poverty, or experiencing both, according to a new global study by the University of Oxford.
The analysis of around 1.04 billion school-aged children across 108 countries found that 135.8 million children are out of school, of whom 110.2 million are also living in multidimensionally poor households. Overall, around 31% of school-aged children covered by the analysis are out of school, multidimensionally poor, or both.
The report, produced by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), examines children’s individual experiences of undernutrition and school attendance alongside multidimensional poverty at the household level. It uses the latest available data from the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), produced by OPHI and the United Nations Development Programme.
The Global MPI measures deprivation across 10 indicators covering health, education and living standards. A person is identified as multidimensionally poor when they are deprived in at least one-third of the weighted indicators.
136 million children are out of school
The report finds a tight overlap between school exclusion and broader household poverty. Of the 135.8 million children out of school across the 108 countries, 110.2 million are both out of school and living in poor households. That means more than four in five out-of-school children are also experiencing multidimensional poverty.
These children are not necessarily facing only one disadvantage. The 110.2 million children who are both poor and out of school experience, on average, five additional deprivations across the other nine Global MPI indicators.
The finding points to the difficulty of addressing school exclusion through education interventions alone when children are simultaneously facing multiple disadvantages at home.
The global school-age picture
| Indicator | Finding |
| School-aged children covered | Around 1.04 billion |
| Countries covered | 108 |
| Children out of school | 135.8 million |
| Out-of-school children who are also multidimensionally poor | 110.2 million |
| Children who are poor, out of school or both | Around 31% |
| Average additional deprivations among poor, out-of-school children | 5 |
The report says its analysis provides a new lens for understanding children’s schooling in relation to other household-level deprivations, rather than treating school attendance as an isolated indicator.
Women’s education stands out among poor, out-of-school children
One of the report’s strongest findings for education concerns the educational attainment of adults in the household, particularly women.
Around 82.1% of poor and out-of-school children live in households where no woman has completed six years of schooling. The corresponding figure for men is lower: 62.3% of poor and out-of-school children live in households where no man has completed six years of schooling.
The gap is also visible among multidimensionally poor children more broadly. More than two-thirds of both well-nourished and undernourished poor children live in households where no woman has completed six years of schooling. The report also finds that 46.8% of poor and out-of-school children live in households where no adult has completed even one year of schooling.
Taken together, the findings point to a strong intergenerational dimension to educational deprivation. Children who are poor and out of school are disproportionately likely to live in households where women, men or both have themselves had limited access to education.
The report does not establish that low adult education causes children to be out of school, but highlights the close relationship between the two.
Poverty does not affect every child in a household equally
The study also looks beyond household-level averages to examine differences between children living in the same household. It finds that over one-third of poor children under five experience intrahousehold inequality in nutrition. In other words, some children in the household are undernourished while others are not.
A similar pattern appears in schooling: over one-third of poor school-aged children live in households where some children attend school while others are out of school.
This matters because household poverty statistics can obscure significant differences between children living under the same roof. A poor household, therefore, does not necessarily mean that every child in that household has the same nutritional status or educational opportunity.
The report argues that policies need to recognise these differences rather than assuming that deprivation is experienced uniformly by all children within a household.
252 million children under five are poor, undernourished or both
The same overlap between individual child outcomes and household poverty is visible even before school age. Across 97 countries, covering 518.5 million children under five, 252.3 million children are individually undernourished, multidimensionally poor, or both, nearly half of all children in this age group covered by the study.
Around one-third of children under five are individually undernourished, meaning they are stunted and/or underweight. More than 95.6 million children under five are both undernourished and multidimensionally poor, meaning they are stunted and/or underweight while also living in households deprived in at least one-third of the 10 Global MPI indicators.
These children face several disadvantages simultaneously. The 95.6 million children who are both poor and undernourished experience, on average, four to five additional deprivations beyond undernutrition.
Child poverty and nutrition
| Indicator | Finding |
| Children under five covered | 518.5 million |
| Countries covered | 97 |
| Undernourished, poor or both | 252.3 million |
| Both undernourished and multidimensionally poor | 95.6 million |
| Additional deprivations among these children | 4–5 on average |
The report says looking at only one child-level indicator can fail to capture the density of disadvantages experienced by children living in poverty.
South Asia has half of the world’s ‘pioneer children’
The report also identifies a more positive trend in educational attainment. Across 108 countries, 71.3 million children aged 10–17 are classified as “pioneer children” — children who have completed six years of schooling but are the first in their household to reach that level.
South Asia accounts for 35 million, or almost half, of all pioneer children. The report finds that one in nine children aged 10–17 in South Asia is a pioneer child. India accounts for 28 million pioneer children, followed by more than 3 million in Bangladesh, 2 million in Pakistan, 837,000 in Nepal and 508,500 in Afghanistan.
Pioneer children in South Asia
| Country | Pioneer children aged 10–17 |
| India | 28 million |
| Bangladesh | More than 3 million |
| Pakistan | 2 million |
| Nepal | 837,000 |
| Afghanistan | 508,500 |
The report views these children as potential drivers of intergenerational change because they have crossed an educational threshold that no other child in their household has reached. There are also signs of changing gender patterns. India, Bhutan and Bangladesh have higher shares of pioneer girls among girls aged 10–17 than the corresponding shares of pioneer boys among boys of the same age.
Afghanistan is the exception highlighted in the report: 7% of boys are pioneer children compared with 4% of girls. Half of Afghanistan’s pioneer children are also multidimensionally poor. The progress, however, does not always extend to every child in the household. Globally, 9% of pioneer children live in homes where at least one other school-aged child is out of school.
Girls face greater school exclusion in some countries, boys in others
The gender picture in school attendance is not uniform across the developing world. In 19 countries, accounting for 55.6% of all out-of-school children, girls have higher rates of school exclusion than boys.
But the reverse is true in 35 countries, which account for 21.4% of all out-of-school children: boys are more likely than girls to be out of school. In another 54 countries, the study finds no significant gender disparity, although these countries are home to fewer than one in four school-aged children.
Afghanistan has one of the largest gender gaps highlighted in the analysis, with 67% of girls out of school compared with 47% of boys. Pakistan follows, with 30.2% of girls and 22.3% of boys out of school. The Central African Republic and Guinea also record higher rates of school exclusion among girls.
The findings underline that gender disparities in education cannot be treated as uniform across countries or regions.
What the findings mean for education policy
The Oxford study‘s central argument is that child-level outcomes need to be viewed alongside the wider conditions in which children live. For education systems, that means school attendance cannot always be separated from household poverty, adult education and other forms of deprivation.
The findings also show why a single headline indicator can hide important differences. Two children living in the same poor household may have different nutritional outcomes. Two school-aged children in the same household may have different experiences of school attendance.
Similarly, a household with limited adult education can still produce a “pioneer child” who becomes the first to complete six years of schooling. The report therefore makes a case for combining individual-level data with household-level measures when designing programmes to address child poverty, nutrition and school exclusion.
Its findings are particularly relevant to developing countries where education, nutrition and social protection policies often operate across separate policy systems. The evidence suggests that children experiencing multiple, overlapping disadvantages may require interventions that cut across those boundaries.
For India, the findings present a particularly striking contrast. The country has 28 million children aged 10–17 who are the first in their households to complete six years of schooling, making India home to a substantial share of the developing world’s educational “pioneers”. At the same time, the wider analysis shows how children’s educational opportunities remain closely connected to the educational background of adults in their households and to broader multidimensional poverty.
The Oxford study ultimately argues for looking beyond whether a child is simply in school or out of school, and towards the multiple conditions that shape that outcome, the inequalities that can exist between children in the same household, and the possibility that the first child to cross an educational threshold can help change the trajectory of an entire family.
