New UNICEF report assesses for the first time the well-being of children and young people in 21 industrialised countries; UK ranks bottom in child wellbeing assessment

London, 14 February 2007 – A new report providing valuable insight into the well-being of children in 21 industrialised countries, is released today by UNICEF.

Report Card 7, Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries brings together the best of currently available data providing an overview of the state of childhood in the majority of economically advanced nations of the world.

The report for the first time measures and compares overall child well-being across six dimensions: material well-being, health and safety, education, peer and family relationships, behaviours and risks, and young people’s own subjective sense of their own well-being. In total, 40 separate indicators of child well-being – from relative poverty and child safety, to educational achievement to drug abuse – are brought together in this overview to present a picture of the lives of children.

North-European countries dominate the top half of the table, with child well-being at its highest in the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The United Kingdom and the United States find themselves in the bottom of the ranking.

The UK ranks in the bottom third of the country rankings for five of the six dimensions reviewed. While the country ranks higher in the educational well-being dimension, the UK lags behind in terms of relative poverty and deprivation, quality of children’s relationships with their parents and peers, child health and safety, behaviour and risk-taking and subjective well-being.

“We simply cannot ignore these shocking findings. UNICEF’s report is a wake-up call to the fact that, despite being a rich country, the UK is failing children and young people in a number of crucial ways,” said Bob Reitemeier, The Children’s Society’s chief executive.

“The Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Inquiry is a rare opportunity for children and young people throughout the UK to have their say on where we have gone wrong and what we can do to ensure that every child experiences the good childhood they deserve.”

The report shows that there is no strong or consistent relationship between per capita GDP and child well-being. The Czech Republic, for example, achieves a higher overall rank for child well-being than several much wealthier European countries.

Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries shows that no single dimension of well-being stands as a reliable proxy for child well-being as a whole – and that OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries have widely differing rankings for different dimensions of child well-being.

“All countries have weaknesses that need to be addressed and no country features in the top third of the rankings for all six dimensions. By comparing the performance of countries we see what is possible with a commitment to supporting every child to fulfil his or her full potential,” said David Bull, UNICEF UK's Executive Director.

The report, does not attempt to explain each country’s individual rankings but is intended to stimulate national debate and encourage countries to address areas in which they have room for improvement. “As the maxim goes, if you want to improve something, first you have to measure it,” continued Bull.

Main Findings for all six dimensions:

Children’s material well-being

• The lowest rates of relative income poverty (under 5 percent) have been achieved in the four Nordic countries.
  
• A total of nine countries – all in northern Europe – have brought relative child poverty rates below percent.
  
• Relative child poverty remains above the 15 percent mark in the three Southern European countries (Portugal, Spain, and Italy) and in three Anglophone countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland).

Children’s health and safety

• European countries occupy the top half of the table, with the top five places claimed by the four small Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
  
• Approximately 3,500 children (under the age of 15) die every year in the OECD countries from maltreatment. Traffic accidents, drowning, falls, fires and poisoning carry this total to more than 20,000 child deaths each year
  
• The lack of common definitions and comparable data have, for the moment, ruled out the inclusion of two other important indicators - mental and emotional health and child abuse and neglect

Children’s educational well-being

• Belgium and Canada head the league table of ‘children’s educational well-being’
  
• Four southern European countries – Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal– occupy the bottom four places.
  
• Norway and Denmark, usually outstanding performers in league tables of social indicators, are to be found in 18th and 19th places respectively.
  
• Poland ranks comfortably above the majority of OECD countries, including many of its larger and wealthier European neighbours
  
• School leavers who are neither in training nor employment are clearly at greater risk of exclusion or marginalization – a worrying result for countries at the foot of the table – including France and Italy

Children’s relationships

• Relationships with family and friends matter a great deal to children in the here and now, and are also important to long-term emotional and psychological development.
  
• The use of data on the proportion of children living in single-parent families and stepfamilies as an indicator of wellbeing may seem unfair and insensitive. But at the statistical level there is evidence to associate growing up in single-parent families and stepfamilies with greater risk to well-being – including a greater risk of dropping out of school, of leaving home early, of poorer health, of low skills, and of low pay.
  
• Overall, approximately 80 percent of children in the countries under review are living with both parents. But the range is considerable – from more than 90 percent in Greece and Italy to less than 70 percent in the United Kingdom and 60 percent in the United States
  
• Almost two-thirds of children still regularly eat the main meal of the day with their families, with France and Italy maintaining the tradition more tenaciously.
  
• The percentage of children whose parents spend time ‘just talking to them’ several times a week ranges from approximately 90 percent in Hungary and Italy to less than 50% in Canada and Germany.
  
• The percentage of children who report that their peers are ‘kind and helpful’ varies from a high of 80 percent or more in Switzerland and Portugal to less than 50 percent in the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom.

Young people’s behaviors and risks

• Fewer than 15 percent of young people report being drunk on two or more occasions. In the Netherlands, the figure rises to over a quarter and in the UK to almost a third.
  
• In 18 of the 21 countries surveyed, the proportion of those who have been involved in fighting in the previous 12 months is over one third, ranging from fewer than 30 percent in Finland and Germany to more than 45 percent in the Czech Republic and Hungary.
  
• The prevalence of bullying varies more widely, with about 15 percent of children reporting being bullied in Sweden and the Czech Republic and more than 40 percent in Switzerland, Austria, and Portugal.
  
• The percentage of young people (aged 11, 13 and 15) who report smoking cigarettes at least once a week varies from 6 percent in Greece to 16 percent in Germany.
  
• The percentage of young people (aged 15) who report having used cannabis varies even more widely from less than 5 percent in Greece and Sweden to more than 35 percent in the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Canada

Young people’s subjective assessments of well-being

• Children’s subjective sense of well-being appears to be markedly higher in the Netherlands, Spain, and Greece and markedly lower in Poland and the United Kingdom.
  
• Surveys of young people’s own perception of their own health show that, in virtually all OECD countries for which data are available, girls report lower levels of health than boys and that this difference gradually increases with age.
  
• The percentage of young people (aged 11, 13 and 15) who report ‘liking school a lot’ varies from over 35 percent in Austria and Norway to less than 15 percent in Finland, the Czech Republic, and Italy.
  
• In the OECD countries as a whole, there is a slight trend towards decreasing life satisfaction between the ages of 11 and 15, particularly for girls

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NOTE TO THE EDITORS

The Report Card series present ‘league tables’ on aspects of child wellbeing in the world’s most advanced economies (countries that are members of the OECD) seeking to identify areas where societies could do better in supporting every child to be and become all that s/he can be – over and above generally universal access for every child to basic services in education, health, nutrition, shelter.

The Good Childhood Inquiry – the UK’s first independent national inquiry into childhood – is managed by The Children’s Society. The inquiry’s final report and recommendations will be published in 2008. For more information please visit www.goodchildhood.org.uk. On Wednesday 14 February the inquiry is launching a microsite www.mylife.uk.com to gather the views of children and young people.