Our World
in Data
Data

Share of population that cannot afford a calorie sufficient diet

See all data and research on:
Food PricesPoverty

What you should know about this indicator

  • An energy sufficient diet provides enough of a starchy staple food for day-to-day subsistence, without either nutrient adequacy or adherence to dietary guidelines.
  • Non-food expenses are estimated by looking at how much low-income people typically spend on things like housing, clothing, and transportation.
  • This amount is calculated as the average share of non-food expenditure for a low-income consumer, multiplied by the international poverty line.
  • The average share of non-food expenditure is based on the spending habits of specific income groups (quintiles):
    • In upper-middle-income and high-income countries, the first quintile of consumers is considered (the poorest 20% of consumers), where people spend around 54% of their income on non-food needs.
    • In low-income and lower-middle-income countries, the second quintile is considered (the second lowest 20% of consumers), where people spend about 37% and 44% of their income on non-food needs, respectively.
  • The international poverty lines (in at 2017 prices) are:
    • For low-income countries: $2.15/day.
    • For lower-middle-income countries: $3.65/day.
    • For upper-middle-income countries: $6.85/day.
    • For high-income countries: $24.36/day.
  • A value of zero indicates a null or a small number rounded down at the current precision level.
Share of population that cannot afford a calorie sufficient diet
Percentage of the total population unable to afford an energy sufficient diet. A diet is considered unaffordable when its cost plus expenditures for basic non-food needs exceed income per capita per day.
Source
FAO and World Bank (2024), using data and methods from Herforth et al. (2022) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
September 9, 2024
Next expected update
September 2025
Date range
2021–2021
Unit
%

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Food Prices for Nutrition provides indicators on the cost and affordability of healthy diets in each country, showing the population's physical and economic access to sufficient quantities of locally available items for an active and healthy life. It also provides indicators on the cost and affordability of an energy-sufficient diet and of a nutrient-adequate diet. These indicators are explained in detail in the Food Prices for Nutrition DataHub.

Version 3.0, estimated in July 2024, uses the 2021 global food retail price data from the International Comparison Program (ICP) and updates the methodology of calculating the affordability indicators, including indicators measuring the ratio between diet costs and international food poverty lines and indicators measuring the share and volume of the population unable to afford each diet, and they are based on the latest Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP) data expressed in 2017 purchasing power parity dollars (PPP).

Estimates for the prevalence and number of people unable to afford a healthy diet were imputed for countries with missing information based on their regional and global aggregates. Countries' income classifications at the aggregate reporting level follow the calendar year of 2022 standard (the fiscal year of 2024 of the World Bank).

Population data are sourced from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) 2022 revision of the World Population Prospects and World Development Indicators (WDI) of the World Bank. The WDI source data from:

  • The United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2022 Revision.
  • Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices.
  • Eurostat: Demographic Statistics.
  • United Nations Statistical Division. Population and Vital Statistics Report (various years).
  • U.S. Census Bureau: International Database.
  • Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Statistics and Demography Programme.
Retrieved on
September 9, 2024
Retrieved from
https://databank.worldbank.org/source/food-prices-for-nutrition
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Share of population that cannot afford a calorie sufficient diet”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2023) - “Food Prices”. Data adapted from Herforth et al. (2022), adapted by World Bank. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-calorie-diet-unaffordable [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

FAO and World Bank (2024), using data and methods from Herforth et al. (2022) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

FAO and World Bank (2024), using data and methods from Herforth et al. (2022) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Share of population that cannot afford a calorie sufficient diet” [dataset]. Herforth et al. (2022), adapted by World Bank, “Food Prices for Nutrition 3.0” [original data]. Retrieved November 23, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-calorie-diet-unaffordable