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 and under are between and 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