The surges in consumption in recent years, as examined in chapter IV, could easily be erased by a reversal of the business cycle, threatening access to basic consumer staples for this broad swathe of the population. The most evident of these features is that the poverty rate for children is considerably higher than for the rest of the population. Poverty rates among children aged 15 and under are between 1.1 and 2.0 times greater than for the general population, with the largest discrepancies seen in countries with lowest overall poverty rates. With a number of exceptions, in many countries poverty and age tend to be inversely correlated.