Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries
by the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre
February 14, 2007
The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children – their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialization, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they are born.
Main findings
• The Netherlands heads the table of overall child wellbeing, ranking in the top 10 for all six dimensions of child well-being covered by this report.
• European countries dominate the top half of the overall league table, with Northern European countries claiming the top four places.
• All countries have weaknesses that need to be addressed and no country features in the top third of the rankings for all six dimensions of child well-being (though the Netherlands and Sweden come close to doing so).
• The United Kingdom and the United States find themselves in the bottom third of the rankings for five of the six dimensions reviewed.
• No single dimension of well-being stands as a reliable proxy for child well-being as a whole and several OECD countries find themselves with widely differing rankings for different dimensions of child well-being.
• There is no obvious relationship between levels of child well-being and GDP per capita. The Czech Republic, for example, achieves a higher overall rank for child well-being than several much wealthier countries including France, Austria, the United States and the United Kingdom.
February 14, 2007
The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children – their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialization, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they are born.
Main findings
• The Netherlands heads the table of overall child wellbeing, ranking in the top 10 for all six dimensions of child well-being covered by this report.
• European countries dominate the top half of the overall league table, with Northern European countries claiming the top four places.
• All countries have weaknesses that need to be addressed and no country features in the top third of the rankings for all six dimensions of child well-being (though the Netherlands and Sweden come close to doing so).
• The United Kingdom and the United States find themselves in the bottom third of the rankings for five of the six dimensions reviewed.
• No single dimension of well-being stands as a reliable proxy for child well-being as a whole and several OECD countries find themselves with widely differing rankings for different dimensions of child well-being.
• There is no obvious relationship between levels of child well-being and GDP per capita. The Czech Republic, for example, achieves a higher overall rank for child well-being than several much wealthier countries including France, Austria, the United States and the United Kingdom.
© The United Nations Children’s Fund 2007
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