Source: LSE

Poverty Statistics(Myanmar)

"The 2015–17 period was a ‘moderately high-growth’ period, and our results reflect that. The subsequent Covid-19 pandemic and the February 2021 coup have undoubtedly undone much of the prior progress and influenced the profiles of poverty and vulnerability transitions. We do not account explicitly for these two events in the following discussion due to lack of data, though we include some concluding considerations at the end of the post about their impact."

The Myanmar government does not allocate sufficient funds to education and many families cannot afford to send their children to school. Consequently, around 3% of children in Myanmar have had no education and an estimated 8.6 million people older than 15 are illiterate. Without education or basic literacy skills, it is virtually impossible to find a high-paying job outside of factory or construction work.

In Myanmar, the poverty trap forces 1.1 million children aged 5-17 into dangerous working conditions. Unable to participate in both school and the formal workforce, these children find themselves stuck in an inescapable cycle of generational poverty. They work as porters, cleaners, cooks, field laborers and more, either due to coercion by the Burma National Armed Forces or to help supplement their household income. Some employers are quick to exploit an influx of undereducated child workers who are unaware of the health and workers’ rights violations they face. The standard workweek in the United States is typically 40 hours, but a quarter of child workers in Myanmar aged 12-17 typically face workweeks of 60 hours or more. Most child labor takes place in rural areas and a minimum of 197 children work in dangerous conflict-ridden areas such as Kachin, Rakhine and Shan due to coercion.

Children And Education

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Source: UNICEF

Diseases And Health

Source: CV Global

Health issues can be seen across the poverty profile. Poor health is the single most common shock to welfare reported by households. Health expenditures are high and almost exclusively out-of-pocket, and the number of days of labor lost is significant, placing a large burden on households. Child poverty and vulnerability in Myanmar explains that until COVID-19 hit Myanmar and the world, Myanmar was on a path of consistent reduction of household poverty, which had contributed to lift millions of people out of poverty in recent years

In addition to these five million children, a further approximately six million children (34%) live in vulnerable households or households where consumption is only slightly above the national poverty line. Any shock could make these vulnerable households fall into poverty. Like many other countries, Myanmar is implementing measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Unfortunately, the socio-economic effects of these measures and the resulting economic slowdown may have life-long negative impacts on children and delay Myanmar’s achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.