Innocenti Report Card 7 - Child Poverty in Perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries

8/4/2019 Innocenti Report Card 7 - Child Poverty in Perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries

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For every childHealth, Education, Equality, ProtectionADVANCE HUMANITY

An overview ofchild well-beingin rich countriesA comprehensive assessment of the lives

and well-being of children and adolescents

in the economically advanced nations

UNICEFInnocenti Research Centre

Report Card 7

Child poverty in perspective:


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This publication is the seventh in a series oInnocenti Report

Cards, designed to monitor and compare the perormance o

the OECD countries in securing the rights o their children.

Any part o theInnocenti Report Card may be reely

reproduced using the ollowing reerence:

UNICEF, Child poverty in perspective:

An overview o child well-being in rich countries,

Innocenti Report Card 7, 2007

UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Florence.

The United Nations Childrens Fund, 2007

Full text and supporting documentation can be downloaded

rom the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre website.

The support o the German Committee or UNICEF in the

development oReport Card 7 is grateully acknowledged.

Additional support was provided by the Swiss Committee or

UNICEF.

The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy, was

established in 1988 to strengthen the research capability o

the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) and to support

its advocacy or children worldwide.

The Centre (ormally known as the International Child

Development Centre) generates research into current and

uture areas o UNICEFs work. Its prime objectives are to

improve international understanding o issues relating to

childrens rights and to help acilitate the ull implementation

o the United Nations Convention on the Rights o the Child

in both industrialized and developing countries.

The Centres publications are contributions to a global debate

on child rights issues and include a wide range o opinions.

For that reason, the Centre may produce publications that do

not necessarily reect UNICEF policies or approaches on

some topics.

The views expressed are those o the authors and do not

necessarily reect the policy or views o UNICEF.

UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre

Piazza SS. Annunziata, 12

50122 Florence, Italy

Tel: (+39) 055 20 330

Fax: (+39) 055 2033 220

[email protected]

www.unice.org/irc


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UNICEF

Innocenti Research Centre

The true measure of a nations 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.

Report Card 7

I N N O C E N T I R E P O R T C A R D 7 1


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The chart be presents the ndings thisReport Card in summar rm. Cuntries are isted in rder their

aerage rank r the six dimensins chid e-being that hae been assessed.1 A ight bue backgrund

indicates a pace in the tp third the tabe; mid-bue dentes the midde third and dark bue the bttm third.

Dimension 1 Dimension 2 Dimension 3 Dimension 4 Dimension 5 Dimension 6

Dimensions ofchild well-being

Aeragerankingpsitin(r a 6dimensins)

Materiae-being

Heath andsaet

Educatinae-being

Fami andpeerreatinships

Behaiursand risks

Subjectiee-being

Netherands 4.2 10 2 6 3 3 1

Seden 5.0 1 1 5 15 1 7

Denmark 7.2 4 4 8 9 6 12

Finand 7.5 3 3 4 17 7 11

Spain 8.0 12 6 15 8 5 2

Sitzerand 8.3 5 9 14 4 12 6

Nra 8.7 2 8 11 10 13 8

Ita 10.0 14 5 20 1 10 10

Ireand 10.2 19 19 7 7 4 5

Begium 10.7 7 16 1 5 19 16

German 11.2 13 11 10 13 11 9

Canada 11.8 6 13 2 18 17 15Greece 11.8 15 18 16 11 8 3

Pand 12.3 21 15 3 14 2 19

Czech Repubic 12.5 11 10 9 19 9 17

France 13.0 9 7 18 12 14 18

Prtuga 13.7 16 14 21 2 15 14

Austria 13.8 8 20 19 16 16 4

Hungar 14.5 20 17 13 6 18 13

United States 18.0 17 21 12 20 20

United Kingdm 18.2 18 12 17 21 21 20

This Report Cardprovides a comprehensive assessment o

the lives and well-being o children and young people in

21 nations o the industrialized world. Its purpose is to

encourage monitoring, to permit comparison, and to

stimulate the discussion and development o policies to

improve childrens lives.

The report represents a signicant advance on previous

titles in this series which have used income poverty as aproxy measure or overall child well-being in the OECD

countries. Specically, it attempts to measure and compare

child well-being under six dierent headings or dimensions:

material well-being, health and saety, education, peer and

amily relationships, behaviours and risks, and young

peoples own subjective sense o well-being. In all, it draws

upon 40 separate indicators relevant to childrens lives and

childrens rights (see pages 42 to 45).

Although heavily dependent on the available data, this

assessment is also guided by a concept o child well-beingthat is in turn guided by the United Nations Convention on

the Rights o the Child(See box page 40). The implied

C H I l D w E l l - B E I N G I N R I C H C o U N T R I E S :A S U M M A R y T A B l E

oECD cuntries ith insucient data t be incuded in the erie: Austraia, Iceand, Japan, luxemburg, Mexic, Ne Zeaand,

the Sak Repubic, Suth Krea, Turke.

2 I N N O C E N T I R E P O R T C A R D 7


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denition o child well-being that permeates the report is

one that will also correspond to the views and the

experience o a wide public.

Each chapter o the report begins by setting out as

transparently as possible the methods by which these

dimensions have been assessed.

Main fndings

The Netherlands heads the table o overall child well-being, ranking in the top 10 or all six dimensions o

child well-being covered by this report.

European countries dominate the top hal o the overall

league table, with Northern European countries

claiming the top our places.

All countries have weaknesses that need to be addressed

and no country eatures in the top third o the rankings

or all six dimensions o child well-being (though the

Netherlands and Sweden come close to doing so).

The United Kingdom and the United States nd

themselves in the bottom third o the rankings or ve

o the six dimensions reviewed.

No single dimension o well-being stands as a reliable

proxy or child well-being as a whole and several

OECD countries nd themselves with widely diering

rankings or dierent dimensions o child well-being.

There is no obvious relationship between levels o child

well-being and GDP per capita. The Czech Republic,

or example, achieves a higher overall rank or child

well-being than several much wealthier countries

including France, Austria, the United States and the

United Kingdom.

Measurement and policy

What is to be gained by measuring and comparing child

well-being in dierent countries?

The answer lies in the maxim to improve something, rst

measure it.Even the decision to measure helps set

directions and priorities by demanding a degree oconsensus on what is to be measured i.e. on what

constitutes progress. Over the long-term, measurement

serves as the handrail o policy, keeping eorts on track

towards goals, encouraging sustained attention, giving early

warning o ailure or success, uelling advocacy, sharpening

accountability, and helping to allocate resources more

eectively.

Internationally, measurement and comparison gives an

indication o each countrys strengths and weaknesses. It

shows what is achievable in practiceand provides both

government and civil society with the inormation to argueor and work towards the ullment o childrens rights and

the improvement o their lives. Above all, such comparisons

demonstrate that given levels o child well-being are not

inevitable but policy-susceptible; the wide dierences in

child well-being seen throughout this Report Cardcan

thereore be interpreted as a broad and realistic guide to the

potential or improvement in all OECD countries.

Given the potential value o this exercise, every attempt has

been made to overcome data limitations. Nonetheless, it is

acknowledged throughout that the available data may be

less than ideal and that there are prominent gaps. Childrens

exposure to violence in the home both as victims and as

witnesses,2 or example, could not be included because o

problems o cross-national denition and measurement.

Childrens mental health and emotional well-being may

also be under-represented, though attempts have been made

to refect these dicult-to-measure dimensions (see, or

example, the results o surveys into childrens own

perceptions o their own lives on pages 34 and 38). Age and

gender dierences are also insuciently attended to, againrefecting a lack o disaggregated data and the act that the

majority o the available statistics relate to the lives o older

children. A particularly important omission is the level o

participation by three and our year-olds in early childhood

education (or which, again, no internationally comparable

data are available).

Acknowledging these limitations, Report Card 7

nonetheless invites debate and breaks new ground by

bringing together the best o currently available data and

represents a signicant step towards a multi-dimensional

overview o the state o childhood in a majority o the

economically advanced nations o the world.



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M A T E R I A l w E l l - B E I N G

Dimension 1

Figure 1.0 The material well-being of children, an OECD overview

Three cmpnents ere seected t represent chidren's materia e-being (see bx be).

Figure 1.0 aerages each cuntrs scre er the three cmpnents and is scaed t sh each

cuntrs distance abe r be the aerage (set at 100) r the 21 cuntries eatured.

80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120

Poland

Hungary

Ireland

United Kingdom

United StatesPortugal

Japan

Greece

New Zealand

Italy

Germany

Australia

Spain

Czech Republic

Netherlands

France

Austria

BelgiumCanada

Switzerland

Denmark

Finland

Norway

Sweden

CoMPoNENTS INDICAToRS

reatie incmepert

percentage chidren iing inhmes ith equiaent incmes

be 50% the natina

median

husehdsithut jbs

percentage chidren in

amiies ithut an emped

adut

reprteddepriatin

percentage chidren reprting

ami afuence

percentage chidren reprting

e educatina resurces

percentage chidren reprtingeer than 10 bks in the

hme

Assessing material well-beingThe table on the right shows how the index o

childrens material well-being has been constructed.

The choice o individual indicators reects the

availability o internationally comparable data.

For each indicator, countries have been given a score

which reveals how ar that country stands above or

below the OECD average. Where more than one

indicator has been used, scores have been averaged.

In the same way, the three component scores have

been averaged to arrive at each countrys overall

rating or childrens material well-being (see box on

page 5). Materiawe-being

Dimension 1 Material wel l -being

Note: Each country has been placed on a scale determined by the average score or the group as a whole. The unit used is the standard deviation

(the average deviation rom the average). To ease interpretation, the results are presented on a scale with a mean o 100 and a standard deviation o

10.

I N N O C E N T I R E P O R T C A R D 7


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This overview o child well-being

looks rst at material well-being.

Three dierent components have been

considered relative income poverty,

children in households without an

employed adult, and direct measures o

deprivation. Figure 1.0 (opposite)

brings these three components into

one overall ranking table o childmaterial well-being.

Main fndings

The lowest rates o relative income

poverty (under 5%) have been

achieved in the our Nordic

countries.

A total o nine countries all in

northern Europe have brought

child poverty rates below 10%.

Child poverty remains above the

15% mark in the three Southern

European countries (Portugal, Spain,

Italy) and in three anglophone

countries (the United States, the

United Kingdom, and Ireland).

The Czech Republic ranks above

several o the worlds wealthiest

countries including Germany, Italy,

Japan, the United States and the

United Kingdom.

Ireland, despite the strong economic

growth o the 1990s and sustained

anti-poverty eorts, is placed 22nd

out o the 25 countries.

Income Poverty

Two previous issues o the Report

Cardhave been devoted to child

income poverty in the OECD

countries (see Box 7).

The evidence rom many countries

persistently shows that children who

grow up in poverty are more

vulnerable: specically, they are more

likely to be in poor health, to have

learning and behavioural diculties,

to underachieve at school, to become

pregnant at too early an age, to have

lower skills and aspirations, to be low

paid, unemployed, and welaredependent. Such a catalogue o

povertys ills runs the risk o ailing to

respect the act that many children o

low-income amilies do not all into

any o these categories. But it does

not alter the act that, on average,

children who grow up in poverty are

likely to be at a decided and

demonstrable disadvantage.

Ideally child poverty would be

assessed by bringing together data

under a variety o poverty headings

including relative poverty, absolute

deprivation, and depth o poverty

(revealing not only how many all

below poverty lines but also by how

ar and or how long). Nonetheless,

the poverty measure used here

represents a more comprehensive viewo child poverty than has previously

been available.

Relative income poverty

Child poverty can be measured in an

absolute sense the lack o some

xed minimum package o goods and

services. Or it can be measured in a

relative sense alling behind, by

Childrens material well-being


Throughout thisReport Card, a countrys overall score or each

dimension o child well-being has been calculated by averaging its

score or the three components chosen to represent that dimension.

I more than one indicator has been used to assess a component,

indicator scores have been averaged. This gives an equal weighting

to the components that make up each dimension, and to the

indicators that make up each component. Equal weighting is thestandard approach used in the absence o any compelling reason to

apply dierent weightings and is not intended to imply that all

elements used are considered o equal signifcance.

In all cases, scores have been calculated by the z scores method

i.e. by using a common scale whose upper and lower limits are

defned by all the countries in the group. The advantage o this

method is that it reveals how ar a country alls above or below the

average or the group as a whole. The unit o measurement used on

this scale is the standard deviation (the average deviation rom the

average). In other words a score o +1.5 means that a countrys

score is 1.5 times the average deviation rom the average. To ease

interpretation, the scores or each dimension are presented on a

scale with a mean o 100 and a standard deviation o 10.

A common scale



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more than a certain degree, rom the

average standard o living o the

society in which one lives.

The European Union oered its

denition o poverty in 1984: the

poor are those whose resources (material,

cultural, and social) are so limited as to

exclude them rom the minimum

acceptable way o lie in the Member

States in which they live. For practical

and statistical purposes, this has usually

meant drawing national poverty lines

at a certain percentage o national

median income.

Figure 1.1 shows the percentage o

children growing up in relativepoverty dened as living in a

household where the equivalent

income is less than 50% o the

national median or 24 OECD

countries.3

Critics have argued that relative

poverty is not real poverty, pointing

out that many o those who all below

relative poverty lines enjoy a standard

o living higher than at any time in

the past or than most o the worlds

children in the present. But this ails

to acknowledge that in todays OECD

nations the cutting edge o poverty is

the contrast, daily perceived, between

the lives o the poor and the lives o

those around them.

Nonetheless an international

comparison based on a poverty linedrawn at 50% o the median national

income presents only a partial picture

in that it makes no allowance or

dierences in national wealth. It

shows, or example, that the child

poverty rate in the United States is

higher than in Hungary, but ails to

show that 50% o median income (or

a couple with two children) is

approximately $7,000 in Hungary and

$24,000 in the United States. The act

that a smaller percentage o children

are growing up poor in the Czech

Figure 1.1 Reatie incme pert: Percentage chidren (0-17 ears) in

husehds ith equiaent incme ess than 50% the median.

0 5 10 15 20 25

Date: 2000,1999 (Australia, Austria and Greece), 2001 (Germany, New Zealand and S witzerland).

United States

United Kingdom

Italy

Ireland

Spain

Portugal

New Zealand

Poland

Japan

Canada

Austria

Hungary

Greece

Australia

Germany

Netherlands

France

Czech Republic

Switzerland

Belgium

Sweden

Norway

Finland

Denmark

OECD Nations

Figure 1.2 Percentage rking-age husehds

ith chidren ithut an emped parent

Date: 2000, 1999 (Japan and Ca nada), 1998 (Switzerland), 2001 (Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany), 2002 (Austria, Norway and Poland).

Non-OECD, 2004 (Israel).

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Israel

Hungary

Australia

Poland

Germany

United Kingdom

Czech Republic

New Zealand

Ireland

France

Netherlands

Norway

Spain

Denmark

Belgium

Italy

Finland

Canada

Sweden

Greece

United States

Austria

Switzerland

Portugal

Japan

OECD Nations

Non-OECD Nations

I N N O C E N T I R E P O R T C A R D 7


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Republic than in France, or in Poland

than in Italy, does not mean that

Czech or Polish children are more

afuent but that their countries have a

more equal distribution o income. In

other words Figure 1.1 tells us much

about inequality and exclusion but

little about absolute material

deprivation.

Even within individual countries,

relative income poverty does not

reveal howar amilies all below

poverty lines, or or how long.

Furthermore all such measurements o

child poverty are based on household

income and assume a well-

unctioning amily in which availableresources are allocated with reasonable

airness with necessities taking

priority over luxuries. A child

suering acute material deprivation

caused by a parent's alcohol or drug

habit, or example, is not counted as

poor i the amily income is greater

than 50% o the national median.

Relative poverty is thereore a

necessary but not sucient indicator

o childrens material well-being, and

needs to be complemented by some

measure o deprivation.

Unemployment

Various studies have ound that

growing up in a household without

an employed adult is closely associated

with deprivation, particularly i theunemployment is persistent. The

proportion o children who are

growing up in households with no

employed adult has thereore been

chosen as the second component or

building a more rounded picture o

childrens material poverty.

Figure 1.2 is clearly measuring a

dierent aspect o poverty. The United

States, or example, has risen rom the

bottom o Figure 1.1 to th place in

Figure 1.2, while Norway has allen

Report Card 1 (2000) and Report Card 6 (2005) addressed the issue o

child income poverty in the OECD countries. Some o the main fndings:

In recent years, child poverty has risen in 17 out o 2 OECD

countries or which data are available.

Norway is the only OECD country where child poverty can be

described as very low and continuing to all.

Higher government spending on amily and social benefts is

associated with lower child poverty rates. No OECD country devoting

10% or more o GDP to social transers has a child poverty rate

higher than 10%. No country devoting less than 5% o GDP to social

transers has a child poverty rate o less than 15%.

Variation in government policy appears to account or most o thevariation in child poverty levels between OECD countries.

There appears to be little relationship between levels o employment

and levels o child poverty. It is the distribution o employment among

dierent kinds o household, the proportion o those in work who are

on low-pay, and the level o state benefts or the unemployed and

the low-paid, that contribute most to dierences in child poverty rates

between countries.

Variations between countries in the proportion o children growing up

in lone-parent amilies do not explain national poverty rates. Sweden,

or example, has a higher proportion o its children living in lone-

parent amilies than the United States or the United Kingdom but amuch lower child poverty rate than either.

There is considerable variation in child poverty rates even in countries

with broadly similar levels o government spending.

A realistic target or all OECD countries would be to bring relative

child poverty rates below 10%. For the countries that have already

achieved this, the next aim might be to emulate the our Nordic

countries in bringing child poverty rates below 5%.

In many OECD countries there is a pronounced trend towards lower

relative earnings or the lowest paid.

There is a trend or any increase in social spending in OECD countries

to be allocated principally to pensions and health care, leaving little

or urther investment in children.

From previousReport Cards



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rom third to ourteenth place. Such

changes could refect low pay or

employed adults in some countries and

generous benets or unemployed

adults in others. Either way, it adds to

the picture o child poverty. But what

is lacking is some more direct measure

o childrens material deprivation.

Deprivation

Unortunately, there are no

internationally comparable measures o

material deprivation or agreed

denitions o what the right to an

adequate standard o living means. It is

thereore not possible to compare the

proportion o children in each country

who are materially deprived in thesense that they lack such basics as

adequate nutrition, clothing, and

housing. Again, individual governments

may have indicators refecting this

kind o deprivation at national level

but, in the absence o cross-national

denitions and data, three indicators

have been selected which, taken

together, may oer a reasonable guide

(Figures 1.3a, 1.3b, and 1.3c).Date: 2001/02

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Russian Federation

Latvia

Lithuania

Croatia

Malta

Estonia

Israel

Slovenia

Poland

Czech Republic

Hungary

Portugal

Greece

Spain

Ireland

Finland

Belgium

Austria

Germany

France

United Kingdom

Denmark

United States

Switzerland

Canada

Sweden

Netherlands

Norway

OECD Nations

Non-OECD Nations

Figure 1.3a Percentage chidren age 11, 13 and 15 reprting ami afuence

In recent years, relative child poverty has become a

key indicator or the governments o many OECD

countries. The European Unions eorts to monitor its

Social Inclusion Programme, or example, include

relative child poverty and the percentage o children in

workless amilies as the only indicators specifcally

related to children (drawing the poverty line as the

proportion o children in each country living in

households with an equivalent income o less than

0% o the median or that country).

Almost always, it is the national median that is used as

the basis or the measurement o relative poverty. But

rom the point o view o the child it could be argued

that the basis o comparison should be a dierent

entity the province, state, city, or neighbourhood.

Would the picture o child poverty change radically i

the question poverty relative to what? were to beanswered in these dierent ways?

Little data are available to answer this question, but

Report Card 1 drew upon the evidence available in

the year 2000 to suggest some answers. It pointed

out, or example, that the child poverty rate in

Americas richest state, New Jersey, would have

jumped rom 1% to 22% i the basis o comparison

had been the median income or New Jersey rather

than or the United States as a whole. On the same

basis, the child poverty rate in Arkansas would have

allen rom 2% to 1%. Similar changes would

undoubtedly be revealed in other countries where the

mean state income diers signifcantly rom the mean

national income. Spains poorest province,

Extremadura, or example would have seen its child

poverty rate almost halved i the poverty line had

been re-drawn in this way. In countries such as

Australia and Canada, where variations in average

income between regions are smaller, the changeswould be less dramatic.

Relative Poverty




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Date: 2003. Non-OECD 2003, 2000 (Israel)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Russian Federation

Latvia

Israel

Greece

Non-OECD Nations

Japan

Hungary

Poland

Portugal

Ireland

Czech Republic

Denmark

Italy

France

Spain

United States

Switzerland

New Zealand

Canada

Belgium

Finland

United Kingdom

Netherlands

Sweden

Germany

Austria

Australia

Norway

OECD Nations

Figure 1.3b Percentage chidren age 15 reprting ess

than six educatina pssessins

Figure 1.3a uses the Family Afuence

Scale, deployed as part o WHOs

survey oHealth Behaviour in School-

age Children (see box on page 17). The

survey put our questions to

representative samples o children aged

11, 13 and 15 in each o 35 countries.

The questions were:

Does your amily own a car,

van or truck?

Do you have your own

bedroom or yoursel?

During the past 12 months,

how many times did you

travel away on holiday with

your amily?

How many computers doesyour amily own?

The results were scored and scaled to

give a maximum afuence score o 8

with low amily afuence being

dened as a score o 0-3. Figure 1.3a

shows the percentage o children in

each country reporting low amily

afuence so dened.

Among the worlds wealthiest countries, it is in Italy

that the change in the basis o comparison produces

the most dramatic results. In 2000, nationally-based

poverty lines revealed a child poverty rate that was

our times higher in the mid-South than in Lombardy,

whereas state-based poverty lines showed almost no

dierence between the two. In other words, it was

possible or a amily living in Sicily or Calabria to all

below the national poverty line whilst being no worse

o than most o their ellow Sicilians and Calabrians

(the relative child poverty rate or Sicily and Calabria

ell by more than hal, rom 5% to 19%, when the

state rather than the national median was used).

The childs own context o comparison needs to be

taken into account and it would be helpul to have

more data on dierences in child well-being within

nations as well as between nations. But it is at thenational level that policy is made and or most practical

purposes it makes sense or poverty lines to be drawn

in relation to national medians. AsReport Card 1

concluded: In a world where national and

international media are enlarging the society that

people eel themselves to be living in uniying

expectations and homogenizing the concept o the

minimum acceptable way o lie it is probable that

the nation will remain the most widely used basis o

comparison. Children in Arkansas or Sicily or

Extremadura watch the same television programmes as

their contemporaries in New Hampshire or Emilia

Romagna or Madrid. Which brings us to the

uncomortable thought that the same programmes and

the same commercials are today also watched by

children in Lagos and Delhi and Mexico City. In theory,

there is as strong a case or enlarging the basic unit o

comparison as or shrinking it.




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There are weak spots in the Family

Afuence Scale. Variations in the

number o vehicles owned by the

amily, or example, may indicate levels

o urbanization, or the quality o public

transport systems. The number o

holidays taken may refect traditions

such as regular holidays taken with

relatives. Not sharing a bedroom may

also refect dierent cultural traditions,

average amily size, or rural/urban

dierences.

Perhaps the greater problem with

Figure 1.3a, or present purposes, is

that it tells us little about the more

severe kinds o deprivation.

Nonetheless the Family Afuence Scalehas the advantage o being based on

tangible denitions that correspond to

widely held notions o material well-

being.

For present purposes, Figure 1.3a also

provides a snapshot that is clearly

dierent rom the picture o relative

poverty depicted in Figure 1.1. It can

immediately be seen, or example, that

Hungary, the Czech Republic and

Poland, all ranked mid-table when

measured by relative income poverty,

drop to the bottom o the league when

ranked by the Family Afuence Scale.

Conversely the United States and the

United Kingdom move rom the

bottom o the table into the top ten.

Cultural and educational

resources

Another important way o looking at

children's material well-being is to ask

whether, in the words o the

Convention on the Rights o the Child,

the childs circumstances are such as to

allow the development o the child's

personality, talents and mental and

physical abilities to their ullest potential.

In this respect, many commentators

have argued that the lack o

educational and cultural resources

should rank alongside lack o income,

and that the educational resources o-1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5

Japan

Poland

Greece

Portugal

Hungary

Ireland

United States

Belgium

Italy

Czech Republic

Switzerland

France

Netherlands

United Kingdom

Austria

Denmark

Spain

Germany

New Zealand

Finland

Canada

Australia

Sweden

Norway

Figure 1.3 Cmpsite tabe chid materia depriatin

(cmbining Figures 1.3a, 1.3b and 1.3c)

Date: 2003. Non-OECD 2003, 2000 (Israel)

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

Israel

Russian Federation

Latvia

Portugal

Non-OECD Nations

Netherlands

United States

Belgium

Switzerland

Ireland

Japan

United Kingdom

Austria

France

Italy

Poland

Denmark

Greece

Germany

Canada

New Zealand

Finland

Australia

Norway

Sweden

Spain

Hungary

Czech Republic

OECD Nations

Figure 1.3c Percentage chidren age 15 reprting ess than 10 bks in the hme


1 0 I N N O C E N T I R E P O R T C A R D 7


13/52

Comparable survey fndings rom a wide variety o sources, covering

as many OECD countries as possible, have been brought together

and analysed or this report. A ull description o the data sources and

methodologies (including sensitivity analyses) is available in thebackground paper reerred to on page 13.

All o the raw data used in this report are set out on pages 2 to 5.

In all cases, the data sets used are the latest available and in general

apply to the period 2000-2003 (see pages to 7 or dates to which

individual data sets reer).

Comparable data on several OECD countries such as Turkey and

Mexico are unortunately not available.

Some non-OECD countries have been included as a separate list in

some o the tables used in thisReport Card. These have been

selected on the basis o data availability (and in the hope that they

will demonstrate the potential useulness o this approach to manymiddle-income countries not currently members o the OECD).

Data

the home, in particular, play a critical

role in children's educational

achievement.

The diculties o measuring cultural

and educational deprivation are

evident, but some insight into this

aspect o child poverty is oered by

tables 1.3b and 1.3c. Both draw on

data rom the Programme o

International Student Assessment(see

box on page 17) which, among many

other questions, asked representative

groups o 15 year-olds in 41 countries

whether they had the ollowing eight

educational items at home:

a desk or study

a quiet place to work a computer or schoolwork

educational sotware

an internet connection

a calculator

a dictionary

school textbooks.


Figure 1.3b shows the percentage who

report having ewer than six o these

resources.

Drawing on the same source, Figure

1.3c shows the percentage o children

reporting ewer than 10 books in the

home a suggested indicator o the

deprivation o cultural resources.

Combined as in Figure 1.3, these

three indicators show that children

appear to be most deprived o

educational and cultural resources in

some o the worlds most

economically developed countries.

ConclusionThe available data all short o

capturing all the complexities o child

poverty, being unable, or example, to

address important issues such as the

depth and duration o child poverty,

or the extent o more extreme orms

o deprivation. Clearly, there is a need

or more understanding o the links

between income poverty and material

deprivation. In particular, there is a

need to know more about the links

between income poverty, deprivation,

and the kind o social exclusion which

inhibits the development o potential

and increases the risk o perpetuating

poverty rom one generation to the

next.

Despite these necessary reservations, it

is argued that the indicators deployed

and combined in the summary table

or this chapter (Figure 1.0) represent

a signicant improvement on income

poverty measures alone, and that theyoer the best currently available

comparative overview o childrens

material well-being in the worlds

developed economies.

I N N O C E N T I R E P O R T C A R D 7 1 1


14/52

H E A l T H A N D S A F E T y

Dimension 2

80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125

United States

New Zealand

Austria

Ireland

Greece

Hungary

Belgium

Poland

Portugal

Canada

United Kingdom

Australia

Japan

Germany

Czech Republic

Switzerland

Norway

France

Spain

Italy

Denmark

FinlandNetherlands

Iceland

Sweden


heath at age 0-1 number inants ding bereage 1 per 1,000 births

percentage inants brn ith

birth eight (


15/52

Dimension 2 Health and saety

By almost any available measure, the

great majority o children born into

todays developed societies enjoy

unprecedented levels o health and

saety. Almost within living memory,

one child in every ve in the cities o

Europe could be expected to die

beore his or her th birthday; today

that risk is less than one in a hundred.

Loss o lie among older children iseven more uncommon; ewer than

one in every 10,000 young people die

beore the age o 19 as a result o

accident, murder, suicide or violence.

This, too, represents an historically

unheard o level o saety.

Nonetheless, health and saety remain

a basic concern o all amilies and a

basic dimension o child well-being. It

can also be argued that the levels o

health and saety achieved in a

particular country are an indicator o

the society's overall level o

commitment to its children.

Health and saety are assessed here by

three components or which

internationally comparable data are

available: child health at birth, child

immunization rates or children aged

12 to 23 months, and deaths rom

accidents and injuries among young

people aged 0 to 19 years.

The chart opposite (Figure 2.0) brings

these components together into an

overview table o child health and

saety in 25 OECD countries.

European countries occupy the top

hal o the table, with the top ve

places claimed by the our Nordiccountries and the Netherlands. The

Czech Republic ranks ahead o

wealthier countries such as Germany,

Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada

and the United States.

Inant survival and health

The rst component o the index,

child health at birth, has been assessed

by two separate indicators: the inant

mortality rate (the number o deaths

beore the age o one per thousandlive births) and the prevalence o low

birth weight (the percentage o babies

born weighing less than 2500g.).

The inant mortality rate (IMR) is a

standard indicator o child health 5 and

refects a basic provision o the

Convention on the Rights o the Child

which calls on all countries to ensure

the childs enjoyment o the highest

attainable standard o health, including

by diminishing inant and child

mortality. In the developing world, in

particular, the IMR refects the extent

to which childrens rights are met in

such undamental areas as adequate

nutrition, clean water, sae sanitation,

and the availability and take-up o

basic preventative health services. In

the OECD countries it could be

argued that inant deaths have now

been reduced to such low levels that

the IMR is no longer a revealing

indicator. But as Figure 2.1b shows,

substantial dierences still exist among

OECD countries with IMR

ranging rom under 3 per 1,000 births

in Iceland and Japan to over 6 per

1,000 in Hungary, Poland and the

United States.

Signicant in itsel, the inantmortality rate can also be interpreted

as a measure o how well each

country lives up to the ideal o

protecting every pregnancy, including

pregnancies in its marginalized

populations, and taking all necessary

precautionary and preventative

measures rom regular antenatal

check-ups to the ready availability o

emergency obstetric care by which

inant mortality rates have been so

dramatically reduced over the last 80years. A society that manages this so

eectively as to reduce inant deaths

below 5 per 1,000 live births is clearly

a society that has the capacity and the

commitment to deliver other critical

components o child health.

Childrens health and safety

Background to

Report Card 7

ThisReport Card is supported

by a background paper

Comparing Child Well-Being in

OECD Countries: Concepts

and Methods, Innocenti

Working Paper No. 200-03,

Jonathan Bradshaw, Petra

Hoelscher and Dominic

Richardson, UNICEF Innocenti

Research Centre, Florence,

200.

The paper, setting out in more

detail the methods and

sources used in this overview,

is available on the Innocentiweb-site (www.unice.org/irc).



16/52

The second o the two indicators

chosen to represent health in the

earliest stage o lie is the prevalence

o low birth weight (Figure 2.1a). This

is a well-established measure o

increased risk to lie and health in the

early days and weeks o lie, but has

also been associated with a greater risk

to cognitive and physical development

throughout childhood. It may also

speak to wider issues in that low birth

weight is known to be associated with

the mothers health and socio-

economic status. Mothers whose own

diets have been poor in their teenage

years and in pregnancy, or who smokeor drink alcohol in pregnancy, are

signicantly more likely to have low

birth weight babies. This indicator

thereore also refects the well-being

o mothers a critical actor or

virtually all aspects o child well-being.

Immunization

The second component selected or

the assessment o child health is the

national immunization rate, refecting

not only the level o protection

against vaccine preventable diseases

but also the comprehensiveness o

preventative health services or

children.7 Immunization levels also

serve as a measure o national

commitment to primary health careor all children (Article 24 o the

Convention on the Rights o the Child).

Figure 2.2 ranks 25 OECD countries

by the percentage o children aged

between 12 and 23 months who have

received immunization against

measles, polio, and diphtheria,

pertussis and tetanus (DPT3). Overall,

it shows high levels o coverage with

no country alling below an average

rate o 80%. But in the case o

immunization the standard must

surely be set at a very high level

indeed. Vaccination is cheap, eective,

sae, and oers protection against

several o the most common and

serious diseases o childhood (and

ailure to reach high levels oimmunization can mean that herd

immunity or certain diseases will not

Figure 2.1b l birth eight rate

(% births ess than 2500g)


Israel

Slovenia

Russian Federation

Malta

Croatia

Latvia

Lithuania

Estonia

Japan

Non-OECD Nations

Hungary

Greece

United States

United Kingdom

Portugal

Austria

Spain

Germany

France

Czech Republic

Switzerland

Italy

Belgium

Australia

New Zealand

Poland

Canada

Denmark

Netherlands

Norway

Ireland

Sweden

Finland

Iceland

OECD Nations

Date: 2003, 2002 (Australia, Canada, Greece, Switzerland), 2001 (Spain, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands),

1995 (Belgium). Non-OECD 2001, 2000 (Croatia).

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Figure 2.1a Inant mrtait rate

(deaths bere the age 12 mnths per 1000 ie births)

Russian Federation

Latvia

Lithuania

Estonia

Croatia

Malta

Israel

Slovenia

Hungary

Non-OECD Nations

United States

Poland

New Zealand

Canada

United Kingdom

Ireland

Netherlands

Greece

Australia

Austria

Denmark

Switzerland

Italy

Belgium

Germany

Spain

Portugal

France

Czech Republic

Norway

Sweden

Finland

Japan

Iceland

OECD Nations

Date: 2003, 2002 (Canada and the USA), 2001 (New Zealand). Non-OECD 2003

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16



17/52

be achieved and that many more

children will all victim to disease).

Furthermore, immunization rates may

have broader signicance in as much

as the small dierences in levels may

be indicative o the eort made by

each nation to 'reach the unreached

and provide every child, and

particularly the children o

marginalized groups, with basic

preventative health services.

Had adequate data been available, the

percentage o inants who are breast-

ed up to six months o age wouldalso have been included in this picture

o child health in the rst year o lie.

Apart rom its unrivalled nutritional

and immunological advantages in the

earliest months, breast milk has also

been associated with long-term

advantages rom improved cognitive

development to reduced risk o heart

disease. The percentage o inants

being breast-ed in each country

might also be interpreted as an

indicator o the extent to which the

results o todays health research are

put at the disposal o, and adopted by,

the public at large. Unortunately

denitional problems and a lack o

data or the majority o OECD

countries led to the exclusion o thisindicator (though it is worth noting in

passing that available data on at least

partial breast-eeding at the age o six

months show unusually wide

variations across the OECD rom a

high o 80% in Norway to a low o

just over 10% in Belgium).

Saety

The third and nal component used

to assess child health and saety is the

rate o deaths among children and

young people caused by accidents,

murder, suicide, and violence.

Although this bundles together risks

o very dierent kinds, it nonetheless

serves as an approximate guide to

overall levels o saety or a nations

young people.

Drawing on the World Health

Organizations mortality database,

Figure 2.3 ranks 25 OECD countries

according to the annual number o

deaths rom such causes or every

100,000 people in the 0-19 age group.

As deaths at this age are thankully

rare, random year-on-year variations

have been smoothed by averaging the

statistics over the latest three years or

which data are available.

Four countries Sweden, United

Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Italy

can be seen to have reduced the

incidence o deaths rom accidents and

injuries to the remarkably low level o

ewer than 10 per 100,000. O the

other OECD countries, all but two

are recording rates o ewer than 20

per 100,000.

These gures represent rapid and

remarkable progress; over the last 30

years, child deaths by injury in OECD

countries have allen by about 50%.8

Nonetheless, some countries have

clearly achieved higher standards o

child saety than others and the

dierences are signicant. I all OECD

countries had the same child injury

death rate as Sweden, or example,

then approximately 12,000 child

deaths a year could be prevented. As is

Date: Measles data , all countries (2003), Pol3 and DPT3 data, all countries (2002)

70 75 80 85 90 95 100

Slovenia

Malta

Israel

Croatia

Russian Federation

Estonia

Lithuania

Latvia

Austria

Non-OECD Nations

Ireland

New Zealand

Belgium

United Kingdom

Greece

Norway

Switzerland

Italy

Canada

Germany

Japan

United States

Iceland

Australia

France

Spain

Portugal

Finland

Sweden

Netherlands

Denmark

Poland

Czech Republic

Hungary

OECD Nations

Figure 2.2 Percentage chidren age 12-23 mnths immunized against the

majr accine-preentabe diseases




18/52

so oten the case, the likelihood o a

child being injured or killed is

associated with poverty, single-

parenthood, low maternal education,

low maternal age at birth, poor

housing, weak amily ties, and parental

drug or alcohol abuse.9

Omissions

There are important omissions in this

picture o child health and saety. In

particular, some direct indicator o

childrens mental and emotional health

would have been a valuable addition.

National suicide rates among

adolescents were considered, but the

research suggests that suicide is more

to be seen as a rare event related to

particular circumstance than as an

indicator o overall mental health

among a nations young people.

The overview would also have

beneted rom some indicator o the

level o child abuse and neglect in

each nation. The lack o common

denitions and research

methodologies, plus inconsistencies

between countries in the current

classication and reporting o child

abuse, have or the moment ruled out

this possibility. Report Card 5

(September 2003) reported that a

small group o OECD countries


Date: 1993-1995 (Finland, Hungary, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway), 1994-1996 (Poland, Sweden), 1995-1997 (Australia, Belgium,

Germany), 1996-1998 (Spain, US), 1997-1999 (Canada, France, New Zealand, UK), 1999-2001 (Austria, Ireland, Italy, Portugal), 2000-2002

(Switzerland, Greece). Non-OECD: Israel (2003), Russian Federation (2000-2002) Lithuania (1995-97), Estonia, Slovenia (1994-96), Latvia

(1993-95), Malta, Croatia (1992-94).

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Israel

Russian Federation

Latvia

Estonia

Lithuania

Slovenia

Croatia

Malta

New Zealand

Non-OECD Nations

United States

Portugal

Czech Republic

Poland

Hungary

Belgium

Australia

Austria

Ireland

Finland

Canada

Greece

Germany

Norway

Japan

France

Switzerland

Spain

Iceland

Italy

Netherlands

United Kingdom

Sweden

OECD Nations

Figure 2.3 Deaths rm accidents and injuries per 100,000 under 19 ears

(aerage atest three ears aaiabe)

Spain, Greece, Italy, Ireland and

Norway have the lowest rates o

child death rom maltreatment. Once

again, the risk actors most closely and

consistently associated with child

abuse and neglect are poverty, stress,

and parental drug and alcohol abuse.

In total, approximately 3,500 children

(under the age o 15) die every year in

the OECD countries rom

maltreatment, physical abuse, and

neglect. Trac accidents, drownings,

alls, res and poisoning carry this

total to more than 20,000 child deaths

each year.10 These may not be large

gures in relation to the total

populations o young people in theOECD countries. But as Report Card

2 argued in 2001, such gures need to

be read in the light o the

unimaginable anguish and grie o the

amilies concerned, and o the act

that the number o deaths is but the

tip o an iceberg o trauma and

disability.



19/52


Two o the sources drawn upon extensively in this Report Card are the OECD

Programme or International Student Assessment (PISA) and the World Health

Organizations survey oHealth Behaviour in School-age Children (HBSC) 2001.

HBSC 2001

For more than 20 years, the World Health Organization

surveyHealth Behaviour in School-age Children (HBSC)has inormed and inuenced health policy and health

promotion by collecting inormation on such topics as

amily resources and structure, peer interaction, risk

behaviours, subjective health, sexual health, physical

activity, and eating and sel-care habits. The latest

HBSC survey was conducted in 2001 and included 21

OECD countries in its total o 35 nations (Australia,

New Zealand, Japan and Iceland did not take part).

In each participating country, HBSC uses cluster survey

techniques to select 1,500 young people at each o

three ages 11, 13, and 15 years. Consistent

procedures are ollowed to ensure the comparability o

survey methods and data processing techniques.

Trained administrators are present in the classroom or

the administration o all questionnaires.

HBSC data have contributed to various dimensions o

this overview, including childrens material well-being,

childrens relationships, behaviours, and subjective

well-being.

*Results rom the 200 PISA were not available in time to be

included in this overview.

Sources:

Adams, R. & Wu, M., (eds.) (2002)PISA 2000Technical Report.

Paris, OECD.

Currie, C., et al (eds.) (200) Young Peoples Health in Context.

Health Behaviour in School-age Children Study (HBSC):

International Report rom the 2001/2002 Study. WHO Regional

Ofce or Europe.

HBSC (2005)Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Website

(http://www.hbsc.org/index.html), November 2005.

OECD (200)Learning or Tomorrows World: First Results romPISA 2003. Paris, OECD.

PISA and HBSC

PISA

Beginning in 2000, the PISA is conducted every three

years with the objective o assessing young peoplesknowledge and lie-skills in economically developed

countries.* The our main areas o assessment are:

reading, mathematics and science literacy

study and learning practices

amily resources and structure (including pupils

own perspectives o their school-lie and peers)

the organization o schools and school

environments.

Year 2000 data were collected or 3 countries,

including all o the countries eatured in this study. In

its second wave (2003), PISA collected data or 1

countries. PISA 2003 also included a new assessment

o problem solving skills.

Data are collected rom nationally representative

samples o the school population at around the age o

15 (the end o compulsory schooling in most

countries). Schools are sampled on the basis o size

with a random sample o 35 pupils or each school

chosen. Total sample sizes are usually between ,000

and 10,000 pupils per country .

To ensure comparability, data collection systems

employ standardized translation and assessment

procedures and a collection window is set to ensure

that data are collected at comparable times in the

school year. Where response rates are low, PISA

administrators work with schools and national project

managers to organize ollow-up sessions. During each

PISA round, international monitors review both the

national centres and visit at least 25% o the selected

schools in each country to ensure quality and

consistency o data collection procedures.

PISA data have contributed to various dimensions o

this overview, including material well-being,

educational well-being, subjective well-being, andchildrens relationships.



20/52

E D U C A T I o N A l w E l l - B E I N G

Dimension 3

80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120

Portugal

Italy

Austria

France

United Kingdom

Greece

Spain

New Zealand

Switzerland

Hungary

United States

Iceland

Norway

Germany

Czech Republic

Denmark

Ireland

Australia

Netherlands

Sweden

Finland

Poland

Canada

Belgium


schachieementat age 15

aerage achieement in readingiterac

aerage achieement in

mathematica iterac

aerage achieement in science

iterac

bend basics percentage aged 15-19remaining in educatin

the transitin tempment

percentage aged 15-19 nt in

educatin, training r

empment

percentage 15 ear-ds

expecting t nd -skied

rk

Assessing educational well-beingThe table on the right shows how childrens

educational well-being has been assessed. The

choice o individual indicators reects the availability

o internationally comparable data.


showing how ar that country stands above or below

the average or the countries under review. Where

more than one indicator has been used, scores have

been averaged. In the same way, the three

component scores have been averaged to arrive at

each countrys overall rating or childrens

educational well-being (see box on page 5). Educatinawe-being

Dimension 3 Educational wel l -being

Figure 3.0 The educational well-being of children, an OECD overview

The eague tabe be attempts t sh each cuntrs perrmance in chidrens educatina e-being in reatin t the aerage r

the oECD cuntries under reie. Scres gien are aerages the scres r the three cmpnents seected t represent chidren's

educatina e-being (see bx be).

This erie tabe is scaed t sh each cuntrs distance abe r be the oECD aerage 100.



21/52


Childrens educational well-being

A measure o overall child well-being

must include a consideration o how

well children are served by the

education systems in which so large a

proportion o their childhood is spent

and on which so much o their uture

well-being is likely to depend. Ideally

such a measure would refect the

extent to which each country is living

up to its commitment to Article 29 othe Convention on the Rights o the

Childwhich calls orthe development

o the childs personality, talents and

mental and physical abilities to their

ullest potential.

Figure 3.0 brings together the three

dierent components chosen to

represent educational well-being into

an OECD overview. Belgium and

Canada head the table. The United

Kingdom, France and Austria join the

our Southern European countries at

the oot o the rankings. But perhaps

the most remarkable result is recorded

by Poland which takes third place in

the table despite being, by some

margin, the poorest country out o the

24 countries listed (with a per capita

GDP11 o less than hal that o the

only two countries ranking higher in

the table).

Achievement

The rst component chosen to

represent educational well-being is

young people's educational

achievements in reading, maths and

science. This is made possible by the

OECDs Programme o International

Student Assessment (PISA) which sets

out to measure, every three years, theextent to which education systems in

participating countries are preparing their

students to become lielong learners and

to play constructive roles as citizens in

society. 12 To complete this survey

approximately 250,000 students in 41

countries are given a two-hour

examination designed to measure their

abilities in reading, maths and science.

The examination is set by an

international expert group, including

both employers and educationalists, andis based on the ability to apply basic

literacy, numeracy, and scientic skills

to the management o everyday lie.

Figure 3.1 combines the results into an

overall league table o school

achievement.

Some salient eatures:

Finland, Canada, Australia, and

Japan head the table.

Four southern European countries

Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal

occupy the bottom our places.

Norway and Denmark, usually

outstanding perormers in league

tables o social indicators, are to be

ound in 18th and 19th places

respectively.

The Czech Republic ranks

comortably above the majority o

OECD countries, including many

o its larger and wealthier

European neighbours.

Date: 2003

-2.0 -1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5

Greece

Portugal

Italy

Spain

United States

Hungary

Denmark

Norway

Austria

Poland

Germany

Iceland

France

Czech Republic

Ireland

Sweden

United Kingdom

Switzerland

Belgium

New Zealand

Netherlands

Japan

Australia

Canada

Finland

Figure 3.1 Educatina achieement 15 ear-ds, an erie reading,

mathematica and scientic iterac.



22/52

Ideally, an overview o educational

well-being would also have included

some measure o the extent to which

dierent OECD countries prevent

low-achieving pupils rom alling too

ar behind the average level o

achievement. This was the issue

addressed in Report Card 4 (2002)

which ound wide variations in

educational disadvantage within the

OECD countries. The same study also

ound that high absolute standards o

educational achievement are not

incompatible with low levels o

relative disadvantage i.e. the best

education systems allow high-

achieving pupils to ull their

potential whilst not allowing others toall too ar behind.

Beyond basic skills

Those growing up in the OECD

countries today ace a world in which

managing the ordinary business o lie

work and careers, amilies and homes,

nance and banking, leisure and

citizenship is becoming ever more

complex. The corollary o this is that

those with low skills and ew

qualications ace a steepening incline

o disadvantage. The basic literacy,

maths and science skills measured in

Figure 3.1 are the oundation or

coping with these demands. But more

advanced skills are increasingly

necessary i young people are to cope

well with the changing demands o

labour markets. A measure o beyond

basic skills is presented in Figure 3.2

which shows the percentage o children

who continue in education beyond the

compulsory stages. Once again, the tophal o the table is captured by

Northern European countries.

Transition to employment

How well young people manage the

transition rom education to

employment is the third component

selected to represent educational

well-being.

Clearly the transition to paid work is

dependent not only on skills and

qualications acquired in school but

also on the training and employment

opportunities available thereater.

Nonetheless, the transition to earning a

living is one o the important outcomes

o education and is a critical stage in

the lie o almost every young person.

Two complementary indicators have

been chosen to represent that transition.

The rst is the percentage o young

people aged 15 to 19 in each countrywho are not in education, employment,

or training (Figure 3.3a). The second is

the percentage o young people in each

country who, when asked what kind o

job do you expect to have when you

are about 30 years old?, replied by

listing a job requiring low skills (Figure

3.3b). Work requiring low skills is

dened using an internationally

standardized index and implies not

requiring urther training or

qualications.

School leavers who are neither in

training nor employment are clearly at

greater risk o exclusion or

marginalization. Figure 3.3a is thereore

worrying or those countries at the

oot o the table including France

and Italy. High percentages o 15 year-

olds expecting to be in low-skilledwork would also appear to be a cause

or concern in labour markets where

many low-skill jobs are under threat

rom either outsourcing or

technological innovation or both. In

countries like France, Germany, and the

United Kingdom, the proportion o

young people not looking beyond low-

skilled work is more than 30%. In the

United States, it is less than 15%.

Date: 2003. Non-OECD 2003, 2002 (Russian Federation).

20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Russian Federation

Israel

New Zealand

Non-OECD Nations

Portugal

United States

United Kingdom

Austria

Italy

Spain

Australia

Greece

Iceland

Switzerland

Hungary

Ireland

Denmark

Netherlands

Norway

Finland

Sweden

France

Poland

Germany

Czech RepublicBelgium

OECD Nations

Figure 3.2 Percentage 15-19 ear-ds in u time r part time educatin




23/52

Date: 2003, 2002 (Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States). Non-OECD: 2003,

2002 (Israel).

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Israel

France

Non-OECD Nations

Italy

Austria

Finland

United Kingdom

Greece

Portugal

Switzerland

Spain

Belgium

United States

Hungary

Australia

Canada

Czech Republic

Ireland

Germany

Netherlands

Iceland

Sweden

Poland

Denmark

OECD Nations

Norway

Figure 3.3a Percentage 15-19 ear-ds nt in educatin,

training r empment

Date: 2000

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Israel

Russian Federation

Latvia

Japan

Non-OECD Nations

France

Switzerland

Czech Republic

United Kingdom

Germany

Netherlands

Austria

Iceland

Hungary

Norway

Sweden

Finland

Spain

Italy

Australia

New Zealand

Ireland

Canada

Denmark

Belgium

Portugal

Greece

Poland

United States

OECD Nations

Figure 3.3b Percentage pupis age 15 expecting t nd

rk requiring skis

Early childhood

There is a glaring omission rom this

attempt to build an overview picture

o childrens educational well-being in

the OECD countries.

For several decades, educational

research has consistently pointed to

the act that the oundations or

learning are constructed in the earliest

months and years o lie and that the

eort to give every child the best

possible start needs to begin well

beore the years o ormal education.

This growing realization, combined

with other changes such as the rapidly

increasing participation o women in

the workorce and the steep rise in

the number o single-parent amilies,

has made child care into one o the

biggest issues acing both amilies andgovernments in the OECD countries

today. By the same token, it must also

be regarded as a major actor in

childrens educational well-being.

Unortunately, adequate and

comparable data are not available to

permit the quality and availability o

child care in dierent countries to be

included in this overview.

International statistics are available

showing the percentage o children

aged 0 to 2 years who are in

registered child care, but these data

speak more to the availability o

women or paid work and have

nothing to say about the quality o the

child care provided; nor do they

address the current and considerable

controversy about the benets o day

care or children under the age o two.Ideally, data would have been included

on day care or pre-school provision

or 3-to-6 year-olds, and this

represents an obvious area or uture

improvements in this overview.

On the question o how quality child

care should be dened there is broad

but vague agreement. The OECDs

own review o child care services has

described the essence o quality care

as a stimulating close, warm and

supportive interaction with children. A

similar review in the United States has

concluded that warm, sensitive and

responsive interaction between caregiver

and child is considered the cornerstone o

quality a characteristic that is as

dicult to dene and measure as it is

to deliver.




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R E l A T I o N S H I P S

Dimension 4

75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120

United Kingdom

United States

Czech Republic

Canada

FinlandAustria

Sweden

Poland

Germany

France

Greece

Norway

Denmark

Spain

Ireland

Hungary

Belgium

SwitzerlandNetherlands

Italy

Portugal


ami structure percentage chidren iing insinge-parent amiies

percentage chidren iing in

stepamiies

amireatinships

percentage chidren h

reprt eating the main mea

the da ith parents mre than

nce a eek

percentage chidren h

reprt that parents spend time

just taking t them

peer reatinships percentage 11, 13 and 15ear-ds h reprt nding

their peers kind and hepu

Assessing young peoples relationshipsThe box on the right shows how the index o

childrens relationships has been constructed. The

indicators used reect the limited availability o

internationally comparable data.


which reveals how ar that country stands above or

below the average or the OECD countries under

review. Where more than one indicator has been used,

scores have been averaged. In the same way, the

three component scores have been averaged to arrive

at each countrys overall rating or this Relationships

dimension o childrens well-being (see box on page 5). Rea

tinships

Dimension Relat ionships

Figure 4.0 Young peoples family and peer relationships, an OECD overview

The quait chidrens reatinships is as dicut t measure as it is critica t e-being. Nnetheess it as cnsidered t imprtant

a actr t be mitted atgether and an attempt has therere been made t measure the quait ami and peer reatinships using

data n ami structures, pus chidrens n ansers t sure questins. The tabe be shs each cuntrs apprximate standing

in reatin t the aerage recrded r the oECD as a he.

The tabe is scaed t sh each cuntrs distance abe r be the oECD aerage 100.



25/52

Childrens relationships

Relationships with amily and riends

matter a great deal to children in the

here and now, and are also important to

long-term emotional and psychological

development. Despite the obvious

problems o denition and measurement,

an attempt has thereore been made to

capture something o this critical

dimension o childrens well-being.

From the limited data available, three

components have been selected to

represent this dimension amily

structure, relationships with parents, and

relationships with riends and peers.

Figure 4.0 combines these into a

tentative OECD overview o the

relationships dimension o child well-

being.

Family structureThe use o data on the proportion o

children living in single-parent amilies

and stepamilies as an indicator o well-

being may seem unair and insensitive.

Plenty o children in two-parent amilies

are damaged by their parents

relationships; plenty o children in

single-parent and stepamilies are

growing up secure and happy. Nor can

the terms single-parent amilies and

stepamilies do justice to the many

dierent kinds o amily unit that have

become common in recent decades. But

at the statistical level there is evidence to

associate growing up in single-parent

amilies and stepamilies with greater

risk to well-being including a greater

risk o dropping out o school, o

leaving home early, o poorer health, o

low skills, and o low pay. Furthermore

such risks appear to persist even whenthe substantial eect o increased

poverty levels in single-parent and

stepamilies have been taken into

account (although it might be noted

that the research establishing these links

has largely been conducted in the

United States and the United Kingdom

and it is not certain that the same

patterns prevail across the OECD).

It is in this context that Figures 4.1a

and 4.1b present data rom 25 OECDcountries showing the proportion o

children age 11, 13, and 15 in each

country who are living either with a

single-parent or in a stepamily.

Both tables show rather dierent

country groupings rom many o the


other ranking tables in this report, with

the Southern European countries

dominating the top o the table. Overall,

approximately 80% o children in the

countries under review are living with

both parents. But the range is

considerable rom more than 90% in

Greece and Italy to less than 70% in the

United Kingdom and 60% in the

United States.13

Parental time

In an attempt to get closer to the issue

the quality o amily relationships

Figures 4.2a and 4.2b oer a measure o

how much time amilies devote to

conversation and interaction with

Date: 2001/02

0 5 10 15 20 25

Latvia

Estonia

Russian Federation

Lithuania

Israel

Slovenia

Croatia

Malta

United States

Non-OECD Nations

United Kingdom

Sweden

Denmark

Norway

Finland

Canada

Hungary

Czech Republic

Germany

Switzerland

Austria

France

Netherlands

Ireland

Poland

Portugal

Belgium

Spain

Greece

OECD Nations

Italy

Figure 4.1a Percentage ung pepe iing in singe-parent amiies

(age 11, 13 and 15)



26/52

Date: 2001/02

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

Latvia

Estonia

Russian Federation

Lithuania

Israel

Slovenia

Croatia

Malta

United States

Non-OECD Nations

United Kingdom

Denmark

Sweden

Norway

Czech Republic

Finland

Canada

France

Germany

Belgium

Austria

Hungary

SwitzerlandNetherlands

Portugal

Ireland

Spain

Poland

Italy

Greece

OECD Nations

children. The data in these two tables

draw on the previously mentioned

Programme o International Student

Assessment (PISA) which, in addition

to testing or educational achievement,

also asks a variety o questions about

the home lives o the students who

take part in the survey.

Among those questions:

In general, how oten do your parents

eat the main meal with you around

a table?

In general, how oten do your parents

spend time just talking to you?

Figures 4.2a and 4.2b show what

percentage o young people in each

country answered these questions bychecking the box marked several

times a week.

Even in the lowest ranked countries,

almost two-thirds o children still

regularly eat the main meal o the day

with their amilies, with France and

Italy maintaining the tradition more

tenaciously. But there are signicant

dierences between the two tables. A

much smaller number o children

report talking regularly with their

parents, with the proportion alling

towards 50% in Germany, Iceland and

Canada. The United Kingdom and the

United States are to be ound in the

top hal o the talking regularly table.

Italy is the only OECD country to

eature in the top level o both tables.

Other data on this topic are availablerom the World Health Organizations

study Health Behaviour in School-aged

Children (HBSC). Among its ndings

are that young people, and especially

girls, nd it easier to talk to their

mothers than to their athers and that

diculty in communicating with

parents rises signicantly between the

ages o 11 and 15.

Relationships with riendsRelationships outside the amily

assume ever greater importance as

Figure 4.1b Percentage ung pepe (age 11, 13 and 15) iing in stepamiies

Date: 2000

40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Israel

Latvia

Russian Federation

Finland

Non-OECD Nations

New Zealand

United States

United Kingdom

Austria

Greece

Australia

Canada

Czech Republic

Hungary

Ireland

Poland

Germany

Spain

Sweden

Denmark

Japan

Portugal

Norway

Belgium

Switzerland

Netherlands

France

Iceland

Italy

OECD Nations

Figure 4.2a Percentage 15 ear-ds h eat the main mea the da ith

their parents seera times per eek




27/52

Date: 2000

20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Israel

Latvia

Russian Federation

Germany

Non-OECD Nations

Iceland

Canada

AustriaSwitzerland

Poland

Australia

Sweden

New Zealand

Belgium

Greece

Spain

Japan

United Kingdom

Ireland

France

Norway

United States

PortugalNetherlands

Denmark

Czech Republic

Finland

Italy

Hungary

OECD Nations

Figure 4.2b Percentage 15 ear-ds hse parents spend time just taking t

them seera times per eek

children grow up. According to the

World Health Organization Being liked

and accepted by peers is crucial to young

people's health and development, and

those who are not socially integrated are

ar more likely to exhibit diculties with

their physical and emotional health. An

attempt has thereore also been made to

incorporate into this overview an

indicator o childrens relationships with

riends and contemporaries.

Figure 4.3, drawing on the HBSC study,

shows the results o surveying 11, 13

and 15 year-olds in more than 30

countries with the question do you nd

your peers generally kind and helpul?.

More than hal were able to answer 'yes'in every OECD country except the

Czech Republic and the United

Kingdom. Switzerland and Portugal top

the table with scores o around 80%.

These dierent sets o data attempt to

represent a dimension o child well-

being that is dicult to dene, measure,

and compare across nations. In some

individual OECD countries, however,

more revealing inormation is becoming

available. The United Kingdoms

National Family and Parenting Institute,

or example, has conducted surveys to

estimate the number o children who

could answer yes to questions such as:

my parent/s are always there or me

when I need them (76%)

my parent/s make me eel loved and

cared or (65%)

I can talk to my parent/s about anyproblem which I may have (56%)

my parent/s and I argue a lot (20%)

my parent/s do not give me the

attention I need (11%)

my parent/s make me eel bad about

mysel (7%)

In the absence o such detailed data or

other OECD countries, this attempt to

include relationships in the overview

o child well-being should be regarded

as an initial step towards monitoring

this dimension o child well-being.


Date: 2001/02

30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Russian Federation

Lithuania

Latvia

Estonia

Israel

Malta

Croatia

Slovenia

United Kingdom

Non-OECD Nations

Czech Republic

United States

France

Italy

Spain

Poland

Greece

Canada

Hungary

Ireland

Belgium

Finland

Netherlands

Denmark

Norway

Germany

Sweden

Austria

Portugal

Switzerland

OECD Nations

Figure 4.3 Percentage ung pepe age 11, 13 and 15 h nd their peers

kind and hepu



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B E H A v I o U R S A N D R I S K S

Dimension 5

70 75 80 85 9590 100 110 115 120105

United Kingdom

United States

Belgium

Hungary

Greece

Austria

France

Canada

Norway

Portugal

Italy

Spain

Switzerland

Denmark

Czech Republic

Ireland

Finland

Germany

Netherlands

Poland

Sweden


heathbehaiurs

percentage chidren h eat

breakast

percentage h eat ruit dai

Documents

Innocenti Report Card 7 - Child Poverty in Perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries