The Multidimensionality of Child Poverty: Evidence from Afghanistan Jean-Francois Trani • Mario Biggeri • Vincenzo Mauro Accepted: 13 January 2013 / Published online: 1 February 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract This paper examines multidimensional poverty among children in Afghanistan using the Alkire-Foster method. Several previous studies have underlined the need to separate children from their adult nexus when studying poverty and treat them according to their own specificities. From the capability approach, child poverty is understood to be the lack of freedom to do and to be what children themselves value and have reason to value. The case of Afghanistan is particularly relevant as years of conflict aggravated by several severe droughts, political insecurity, bad governance and ongoing violence have signifi- cantly increased poverty in the country. The paper discusses the relevant dimensions when analysing child poverty and uses data from a survey carried out by Handicap International which contains information on dimensions of children’s wellbeing that is typically missing in standard surveys. Ten dimension are considered in this paper: health, care and love, material deprivation, food security, social inclusion, education, freedom from economic and non-economic exploitation, shelter and environment, autonomy, and mobility. Our results show that younger children, those living in rural areas, girls and disabled children are the most deprived. Keywords Multidimensional poverty measurement Á Capability approach Á Children J.-F. Trani (&) Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St Louis, 1 Brookings Drive, St Louis, MO 63130, USA e-mail: jtrani@gwbmail.wustl.edu; j.trani@ucl.ac.uk J.-F. Trani Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Leonard Cheshire Center for Inclusive Development and Disability, University College of London, London, UK M. Biggeri Á V. Mauro Department of Economics, University of Florence, Via delle Pandette 9, 50127 Florence, Italy 123 Soc Indic Res (2013) 112:391–416 DOI 10.1007/s11205-013-0253-7