Paper short abstract:

This paper uses survey data from the 4 country Young Lives study to examine the links between shame and child poverty and associated impacts on learning.

Paper long abstract:

Shame is increasingly recognised as a core element to the experience of poverty, affecting both adults and children. The ways individuals mitigate feelings of shame and stigma (concealment of problems, withdrawal etc) can undermine engagement within communities and services and so shame induced by poverty further reduce opportunities open to children. The experience of shame and stigma is therefore an important part of the experience of child poverty. This paper tests these links using multi-country young Lives cohort study from Ethiopia, Andhra Pradesh (India), Peru and Vietnam. The paper creates a data driven measure of feelings of shame. A consistent link is found between lower consumption level and higher reported feelings of shame at 12 years old. The paper then identifies that greater feelings of shame at 12 years old were associated with negative impacts on indicators of children's learning at 12 and at 15 years. In short there is a strong rights based rationale for improving dignity in the design of policy. But alongside this the paper produces new evidence highlighting that policy to promote children's schooling is less likely to be effective when stigma and poverty-induced shaming are high.