Places & Spaces: Shaping policies for environments and children's well-being

FLORENCE/NEW YORK, 3 September 2020 – Suicide, unhappiness, obesity and poor social and academic skills have become far-too-common features of childhood in high-income countries, according to the latest Report Card issued today by the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti. UNICEF’s Report Card Series – now running for 20 years – uses comparable national data to rank EU and OECD countries on childhood. Worlds of Influence: Understanding what shapes child well-being in rich countries uses pre-COVID-19 data and features a league table according to children’s mental and physical health and academic and social skill-set. Based on these indicators the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway rank as the top three places to be a child among wealthy countries.

A new look at children from the world’s richest countries offers a mixed picture of their health, skills and happiness. For far too many, issues such as poverty, exclusion and pollution threaten their mental well-being, physical health and opportunities to develop skills. Even countries with good social, economic and environmental conditions are a long way from meeting the targets set in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Focused and accelerated action is needed if these goals are to be met. The evidence from 41 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and European Union (EU) countries tells its own story: from children’s chances of survival, growth and protection, to whether they are learning and feel listened to, to whether their parents have the support and resources to give their children the best chance for a healthy, happy childhood. This report reveals children’s experiences against the backdrop of their country’s policies and social, educational, economic and environmental contexts.

In-depth analysis of the latest comparable data on the well-being of children in high income countries.

A look at children from the world’s richest countries offers a mixed picture of their health, skills, and happiness. For far too many, issues such as poverty, exclusion and pollution threaten their mental well-being, physical health, and opportunities to develop skills. Since 2000, the Innocenti Report Card series focuses on the well-being of children in high income countries.

Recently, news outlets across the world announced: Finland ranked happiest country in the world – again. This information is based on the World Happiness Report 2021 which uses data from the Gallup World Survey.But is it true?Similar to the 1950s household surveys that questioned only the male breadwinner and projected his feelings to the rest of the society, this poll misses a quarter of the world’s population – children under 15 years old.In a Lamentable Year, Finland Again is the Happiest Country in the World https://t.co/jGzx81PEo2 via @HappinessRpt pic.twitter.com/oUp6crxZJi— World Happiness Report (@HappinessRpt) March 19, 2021So, do children in Finland and other countries agree with adults? Not particularly. There are several studies of children that ask similar questions to the one in the Gallup World Poll. These are all schools-based surveys and have some sampling limitations. But the picture is consistent.The Children’s Worlds survey covered 35 countries/territories across four continents in 2016 to 2019. Finland ranked 15th out 35 countries among children aged 10 years old, and 16th out of 30 at 12 years old. Albania ranked top at both ages.The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children covered children aged 11, 13 and 15 in 45 European countries/regions plus Canada in 2017 to 2018. Finland ranked 26th among 11-year-olds, 14th among 13- year-olds and 13th among 15-year-olds. North Macedonia ranked highest at 11 years old. Kazakhstan ranked highest at 13 and 15.The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 asked 15 year olds in 70 mostly high-income countries/territories about their life satisfaction. Finland ranked 19th. Kazakhstan was 1st.In fact there is very little link between children’s and adults’ life satisfaction across countries.These differences are not restricted to Finland alone. The chart below shows average life satisfaction scores from the Gallup World Poll and PISA for adults and for adolescents aged 15 years old in 64 countries with matching data. Children’s and adults average life satisfaction are unrelated across these countries.Certainly there are some countries – such as Costa Rica – that have high life satisfaction among both groups; and some countries – such as Turkey – that have low life satisfaction among both. But the UK has high adult life satisfaction (8th out of 64) and low adolescent life satisfaction (63rd out of 64). Albania has low adult life satisfaction but high adolescent life satisfaction. Finland is top of the league table for adult life satisfaction but much closer to the middle for children.Sources: Adult life satisfaction taken from World Happiness Report 2020 which used the Gallup World Poll 2017 to 2019. Adolescent life satisfaction taken from the OECD’s PISA survey 2018 of adolescents aged 15 years oldNote: We use data from the Gallup World Survey, 2017 to 2019 (that featured in the World Happiness Report 2020) to match the timing of data collection with that of children’s surveys.What explains these differences?One of the doubts often raised about international comparisons of life satisfaction relates to linguistic and cultural effects. But these can’t really be a major factor here when almost the same question is asked of different age groups in the same country. One of the factors that has been linked with adult life satisfaction is national income. It is fairly clear from the examples in the diagram, and other analysis has confirmed, that this is not really the case for children. It is still not clear what can explain the different country rankings for children but one hypothesis is that high child life satisfaction is linked to the quality of social relationships.Two key messages come out of these comparisons:The factors that contribute to children’s life satisfaction are probably different to those for adults and we need to understand this better.We should be careful about ranking countries only on adults’ views - ignoring children’s views about their lives misses out on a quarter of the voices that are worth hearing.Gwyther Rees is Social and Economic Policy Research Manager at UNICEF Innocenti. Anna Gromada is Social and Economic Policy Consultant at UNICEF Innocenti.