A food insecurity Kuznets Curve?

Abstract

Advances in food security proceed unevenly within and across nations. A striking pattern emerges from analysis of >560,000 individual responses to the first globally comparable, nationally representative, repeated food insecurity survey, which is statistically representative of >96 % of the world’s population. We find the relationship between the prevalence of food insecurity in a country and intranational, interpersonal inequality in food insecurity follows a strong inverse-U shape, i.e., a Kuznets Curve. The relationship is stable over time and across relevant inequality measures and estimation methods. This finding can help guide the implementation of safety nets and social protection programs to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 2 and to satisfy the human right enshrined in Article 25 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.