Profiles

Analyser la situation des enfants dans les pays les plus riches du monde sous un nouvel angle offre une image mitigée de leur santé, de leurs compétences et de leur bonheur. Pour beaucoup trop d’entre eux, des problèmes tels que la pauvreté, l’exclusion et la pollution font peser une menace sur leur bien-être mental, leur santé physique et leurs chances d’acquérir des compétences. Même des pays qui offrent de bonnes conditions sociales, économiques et environnementales sont loin d’atteindre les objectifs fixés par le Programme de développement durable à l’horizon 2030. Pour réaliser ces objectifs, des mesures ciblées et accélérées sont nécessaires. Les données de 41 pays de l’Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques (OCDE) et de l’Union européenne (UE) parlent d’elles-mêmes, qu’il s’agisse des chances de survie, de croissance et de protection des enfants, de la question de savoir s’ils apprennent et se sentent écoutés, ou de celle de savoir si leurs parents disposent du soutien et des moyens nécessaires pour donner à leurs enfants toutes les chances de mener une enfance équilibrée et heureuse. Ce rapport révèle l’expérience des enfants face aux politiques publiques et à la conjoncture sociale, éducative, économique et environnementale de leurs pays respectifs.

Un nuovo sguardo alla situazione dei bambini nei paesi più ricchi del mondo rivela uno scenario misto in termini di salute, competenze e felicità. Troppi problemi, come la povertà, l'esclusione e l'inquinamento, minacciano il loro benessere psicofisico e la possibilità di sviluppare le proprie abilità. Anche i paesi con condizioni sociali, economiche e ambientali favorevoli sono ben lontani dal raggiungere gli obiettivi stabiliti nell'Agenda 2030 per lo sviluppo sostenibile. Per realizzare tali obiettivi, è necessaria un'azione rapida e mirata. I dati relativi a 41 Paesi dell'Organizzazione per la cooperazione e lo sviluppo economico (OCSE) e l'Unione europea tracciano un quadro chiaro della probabilità di bambini e adolescenti di sopravvivere e crescere, di ricevere tutela, istruzione e ascolto, e della misura in cui i genitori sono in grado di fornire sostegno e risorse per garantire loro le migliori possibilità di vivere un'infanzia sana e felice. Questo studio rivela le esperienze dei bambini alla luce delle politiche e del contesto sociale, educativo, economico e ambientale dei rispettivi paesi.

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.

Una nueva mirada a los niños de los países más ricos del mundo presenta un panorama heterogéneo en cuando a su salud, aptitudes y felicidad. Demasiados ven amenazados su bienestar mental, salud física y oportunidades para el desarrollo de aptitudes por problemas como la pobreza, la exclusión y la contaminación. Incluso los países que disfrutan de una buena situación social, económica y ambiental están muy lejos de cumplir las metas establecidas en la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible. Para cumplir tales objetivos se requieren medidas específicas y aceleradas. Las pruebas recabadas en 41 países de la Organización de Cooperación y Desarrollo Económicos (OCDE) y la Unión Europea relatan una historia propia: cuáles son las oportunidades de supervivencia, crecimiento y protección de los niños; si están aprendiendo y se los escucha; si sus progenitores cuentan con apoyo y recursos para ofrecer a sus hijos la posibilidad de vivir una infancia sana y feliz. En este informe se plasman experiencias infantiles con el trasfondo de las políticas nacionales y diversos contextos sociales, educativos, económicos y ambientales.

This research brief compares the properties of individual- and household-based multidimensional child poverty approaches. Specifically, it contrasts UNICEF’s Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) with the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. MODA focuses on children and is rooted in the child rights approach, while MPI has been developed for households and follows Sen’s (1985) capabilities approach. We demonstrate their similarities and differences using two recent Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys: Sierra Leone and Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR). The analysis suggests that MODA tends to produce higher multidimensional child poverty headcount rates than MPI, both because of the differences in the survey items used to construct the indicators of deprivation and because of how the indicators are aggregated and weighted.

I bambini hanno migliori prospettive di vita e i genitori sono in grado di bilanciare meglio il lavoro e gli altri impegni in paesi che hanno delle politiche a sostegno delle famiglie. Queste includono il congedo parentale retribuito, il sostegno per l’allattamento al seno, l’assistenza all’infanzia e l’educazione prescolare a prezzi accessibili e di alta qualità. Il presente rapporto esamina le politiche favorevoli alla famiglia di 41 paesi ad alto e medio reddito attraverso quattro indicatori a livello nazionale: la durata delle ferie retribuite a disposizione delle madri, la durata delle ferie retribuite riservata specificamente ai padri, la quota di bambini sotto i tre anni nei nidi e centri per l’infanzia e la quota di bambini tra i tre anni e l’età dell’obbligo scolastico nei centri e scuole per l’infanzia. Svezia, Norvegia e Islanda sono i tre paesi che più sostengono le famiglie per i quali disponiamo di dati completi. Cipro, Grecia e Svizzera occupano gli ultimi tre posti. Dieci dei 41 paesi non dispongono di dati sufficienti sull’infanzia per essere inseriti nella nostra classifica. Non abbiamo a disposizione abbastanza informazioni aggiornate per mettere a confronto i diversi paesi sulla qualità dei centri per l’infanzia o sulle tariffe e le politiche per l’allattamento al seno. Per i paesi più ricchi esiste un margine per migliorare le loro politiche familiari e per raccogliere dati più accurati. Parole chiave congedo parentale, allattamento, centri per l’infanzia, politiche per le famiglie, paesi OCSE/UE. Ringraziamenti Vorremmo

Children get a better start in life and parents are better able to balance work and home commitments in countries that have family-friendly policies. These include paid parental leave, support for breastfeeding and affordable, high-quality childcare and preschool education. This report looks at family-friendly policies in 41 high- and middle-income countries using four country-level indicators: the duration of paid leave available to mothers; the duration of paid leave reserved specifically for fathers; the share of children below the age of three in childcare centres; and the share of children between the age of three and compulsory school age in childcare or preschool centres. Sweden, Norway and Iceland are the three most family-friendly countries for which we have complete data. Cyprus, Greece and Switzerland occupy the bottom three places. Ten of the 41 countries do not have sufficient data on childcare enrolment to be ranked in our league table. There is not enough up-to-date information available for us to compare across countries the quality of childcare centres or breastfeeding rates and policies. There is scope for the world’s richest countries to improve their family policies and collect better data.

In the world’s richest countries, some children do worse at school than others because of circumstances beyond their control, such as where they were born, the language they speak or their parents’ occupations. These children enter the education system at a disadvantage and can drop further behind if educational policies and practices reinforce, rather than reduce, the gap between them and their peers. These types of inequality are unjust. Not all children have an equal opportunity to reach their full potential, to pursue their interests and to develop their talents and skills. This has social and economic costs. This report focuses on educational inequalities in 41 of the world’s richest countries, all of which are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and/or the European Union (EU). Using the most recent data available, it examines inequalities across childhood – from access to preschool to expectations of post-secondary education – and explores in depth the relationships between educational inequality and factors such as parents’ occupations, migration background, the child’s gender and school characteristics. The key feature of the report is the league table, which summarizes the extent of educational inequalities at preschool, primary school and secondary school levels. The indicator of inequality at the preschool level is the percentage of students enrolled in organized learning one year before the official age of primary school entry. The indicator for both primary school (Grade 4, around age 10) and secondary school (age 15) is the gap in reading scores between the lowest- and highest-performing students.

There is growing recognition among international organizations, scholars and policymakers that education systems must produce equitable outcomes, but there is far less consensus on what this means in practice. This paper analyses differences in inequality of outcome and inequality of opportunity in educational achievement among primary and secondary schoolchildren across 38 countries of the European Union (EU) and/or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The analysis focuses on reading achievement, drawing on data from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We use several measures to operationalize the two concepts of inequality in education. Our results show that inequality of outcome does not necessarily go hand in hand with inequality of opportunity. These two concepts lead to measures that produce very different country rankings. We argue that information on both inequality of outcome and inequality of opportunity is necessary for a better understanding of equity in children’s education.

En los países más ricos del mundo, a algunos niños les va peor en la escuela que a otros debido a circunstancias que escapan a su control, como el lugar donde nacieron, el idioma que hablan o la profesión que ejercen sus progenitores. Estos niños acceden al sistema educativo en situación de desventaja y pueden quedarse aún más rezagados si las políticas y prácticas educativas refuerzan, en lugar de reducir, la brecha entre ellos y sus compañeros. Esos tipos de desigualdad son injustos. No todos los niños tienen las mismas oportunidades de alcanzar su pleno potencial, de perseguir sus intereses y de desarrollar sus talentos y habilidades, acarreando con ello costos sociales y económicos. Este informe se centra en las desigualdades educativas en 41 de los países más ricos del mundo, todos ellos miembros de la Organización de Cooperación y Desarrollo Económicos (OCDE) o de la Unión Europea (UE). A partir de los datos más recientes disponibles, se examinan las desigualdades a lo largo de la infancia —desde el acceso a la educación preescolar hasta las expectativas educativas una vez concluida la enseñanza secundaria— y se analizan en profundidad las relaciones entre la desigualdad educativa y factores como la actividad profesional de los padres, los antecedentes migratorios, el género y las características de las escuelas. La principal particularidad de este informe es la tabla clasificatoria, donde se resume el calado de la desigualdad educativa en la enseñanza preescolar, primaria y secundaria. El indicador de la desigualdad en la educación preescolar es el porcentaje de alumnos matriculados en centros oficiales un año antes de la edad oficial de ingreso en la escuela primaria. Tanto para la escuela primaria (cuarto curso, alrededor de los 10 años) como para la escuela secundaria (15 años), el indicador muestra la diferencia entre las puntuaciones obtenidas en las pruebas de lectura por los estudiantes que obtienen los mejores y los peores resultados.

Dans les pays les plus riches, certains enfants connaissent plus de difficultés scolaires que d’autres, liées à des circonstances sur lesquelles ils n'ont aucun contrôle, telles que leur lieu de naissance, leur langue ou la profession de leurs parents. Ils sont pénalisés dès leur entrée dans le système scolaire et se retrouvent encore plus marginalisés si les politiques et les pratiques éducatives, au lieu de résorber cet écart avec leurs pairs, le creusent. Ces inégalités constituent une injustice. Tous les enfants n’ont pas les mêmes possibilités de s’épanouir, de développer leurs centres d’intérêt et de cultiver leurs talents et leurs compétences. Ces disparités ont un coût économique et social. Le présent rapport se penche sur les inégalités scolaires dans 41 pays comptant parmi les plus riches du monde, tous membres de l’Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques (OCDE) et/ou de l’Union européenne (UE). En se fondant sur les données disponibles les plus récentes, les auteurs examinent les inégalités aux différents stades de l’enfance – de l’accès à l’éducation préscolaire aux perspectives d’études supérieures – et analysent en détail les relations entre les inégalités scolaires et des facteurs tels que l’activité des parents, le parcours migratoire, le genre de l’enfant et le profil de l’établissement scolaire. Le tableau de classement constitue l’élément central de ce rapport : il résume l’étendue des inégalités dans le domaine de l’éducation aux niveaux préscolaire, élémentaire et secondaire. Au niveau préscolaire, l’inégalité est exprimée par le pourcentage d’élèves participant à des activités organisées d’apprentissage un an avant l'âge officiel de scolarisation. Aux niveaux de l’élémentaire (en quatrième année, vers 10 ans) et du secondaire (15 ans), elle se traduit par l’écart entre le score de lecture le plus élevé et le plus bas.

Nei paesi più ricchi del mondo, alcuni bambini hanno un rendimento scolastico inferiore ad altri a causa di circostanze al di fuori del loro controllo, come il luogo in cui sono nati, la lingua parlata o l'occupazione dei genitori. Al loro ingresso nel sistema scolastico questi bambini partono da una posizione svantaggiata, che può peggiorare ulteriormente se le politiche e le pratiche educative rafforzano, anziché ridurre, il divario esistente con i coetanei. Questi tipi di disuguaglianze sono ingiusti. Non tutti i bambini hanno pari opportunità per raggiungere appieno il loro potenziale, per perseguire i loro interessi e sviluppare i propri talenti e abilità. Tutto questo ha costi sociali ed economici. Il presente rapporto è dedicato alle disuguaglianze nell'ambito educativo in 41 dei paesi più ricchi del mondo, tutti membri dell'Organizzazione per la cooperazione e lo sviluppo economico (OCSE) e/o dell'Unione europea (UE). Utilizzando i dati più recenti disponibili, prende in esame le disuguaglianze durante tutta l'infanzia e adolescenza, dall'accesso alla scuola materna fino alle aspettative durante l'istruzione secondaria superiore, ed esplora in profondità le relazioni esistenti tra disuguaglianza educativa e fattori come occupazione dei genitori, contesto migratorio, genere del bambino e caratteristiche degli istituti scolastici. L’elemento chiave del rapporto è la classifica riepilogativa, che riassume l'entità delle disuguaglianze educative a livello di scuola dell'infanzia, elementare e secondaria. L'indicatore di disuguaglianza a livello prescolare è la percentuale di bambini iscritti a programmi di apprendimento organizzato un anno prima dell'età ufficiale d'ingresso alla scuola primaria. Per la scuola sia primaria (quarta elementare, 10 anni circa) sia secondaria (15 anni) è invece il divario nei punteggi relativi alla lettura tra gli studenti con il rendimento più basso e quelli con il rendimento più elevato.

Fiscal incidence analysis is the most widely used methodology to assess the distributional effects of fiscal policies. However, for 40 years, it has lacked a child lens. A child focus on the redistributive capacity of fiscal policy is increasingly important due to the disproportionate incidence of poverty among children globally. This paper provides a child-dedicated focus on fiscal incidence analysis by tracking child-relevant benefits, turning children the unit of analysis, and using multidimensional child poverty metrics. The analysis—Commitment to Equity for Children, or CEQ4C—integrates three analytical frameworks, namely, public finance, fiscal incidence analysis, and multidimensional child poverty analysis. The paper develops a proof of concept for Uganda that includes measurement, diagnostics, and a policy simulation package replicable across diverse contexts. The proof of concept confirms that CEQ4C provides a higher-resolution fiscal incidence analysis for children than the traditional fiscal incidence analysis.

The 2008 financial crisis triggered the worst global recession since the Great Depression. Many OECD countries responded to the crisis by reducing social spending. Through 11 diverse country case studies (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States), this volume describes the evolution of child poverty and material well-being during the crisis, and links these outcomes with the responses by governments. The analysis underlines that countries with fragmented social protection systems were less able to protect the incomes of households with children at the time when unemployment soared. In contrast, countries with more comprehensive social protection cushioned the impact of the crisis on households with children, especially if they had implemented fiscal stimulus packages at the onset of the crisis. Although the macroeconomic 'shock' itself and the starting positions differed greatly across countries, while the responses by governments covered a very wide range of policy levers and varied with their circumstances, cuts in social spending and tax increases often played a major role in the impact that the crisis had on the living standards of families and children.

The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development aim to build on the achievements made under the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by broadening their scope and building upon a consultative process. The MDGs contributed to substantial social progress in eight key areas: poverty; education; gender equality; child mortality; maternal health; disease; the environment; and global partnership. The SDGs not only include a greater number of development goals than the MDGs, but are also global in focus, including advanced economies for the first time. This paper draws attention to the main challenges the 2030 Agenda presents for rich countries, by highlighting a set of critical child specific indicators, evaluating countries’ progress towards meeting the Goals, and highlighting gaps in existing data. The paper will inform UNICEFs Report Card 14, Building the Future: Children and the Sustainable Development Goals in Rich Countries.

The attitudes that we hold are shaped and nurtured by society, institutions, religion and family; they involve feelings, beliefs and behaviours and represent a form of judgement. These attitudes and values define the power relations, dynamics, opportunities and choices between men and women, boys and girls. Societies vary significantly in the scale of egalitarian attitudes and beliefs related to gender roles and opportunities in education, politics, the family, and the workforce. Progress towards more egalitarian gender values is crucial for achieving gender equality among children and young people, which in turn is a pre-condition for sustainable development.

The new universal Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for “reducing at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions” by 2030.

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 1.2 implies that both monetary and non-monetary or multidimensional (MD) child poverty would be measured and monitored, and that the associated indicators would be defined nationally. However, very few countries routinely measure child MD poverty.

Based on nationally representative data from the Armenian Integrated Living Conditions Survey 2013/14, the study finds that 64 per cent of children under 18 are deprived in 2 or more dimensions, with a substantially higher rate in rural than in urban areas. The highest rates of deprivation are in access to utilities, quality housing and leisure activities. More than one in four children are both multidimensionally deprived and live in consumption-poor households, while more than one in three are deprived but do not live in poor households.

Drawing on PISA 2012 data and its earlier rounds, this paper explores alternative approaches to measuring educational inequality at the ‘bottom-end’ of educational distribution within the cross-national context.

If UNICEF were a rich country instead of my employer, it would rank 24th out of 41 EU and OECD countries in the league table of our new report “Are the world’s richest countries family friendly?” on the indicator of full-rate equivalent childcare leave available to female staff (see figure below, which shows where UNICEF would fall among 41 countries).This may not sound generous compared with countries like Estonia and Hungary, where mothers can stay at home until the child’s third birthday and earn the equivalent of more than 70 weeks at full pay for an average earner. But on a closer look, UNICEF’s policy is pretty good.Consider the concept of full-rate equivalent. It combines the duration and generosity of childcare leave so that we can compare policies across countries. It is the number of weeks of leave multiplied by the rate of pay (for an average earner). But in practice are 20 weeks on full pay really the same as 40 weeks on half pay?Only six countries out of 41 allow female employees on average earnings stay at home at full pay for the whole duration of their leave: Mexico (12 weeks), Israel (14 weeks), the Netherlands (16 weeks), Spain (16 weeks), Chile (30 weeks) and Lithuania (62 weeks). Compared to these countries, UNICEF’s provision of 24 weeks at full pay is only behind Chile and Lithuania.When I gave birth to my child in 2016, as a UNICEF staff member, I took advantage of 24 weeks at full pay. I would not have wanted to stay at home for nearly a year on half my pay instead. I was eager to resume my full responsibilities and was keeping up with office developments. I took part in key meetings, worked on research papers, increased my Twitter following and prepared for the launch of my edited book Children of Austerity. A study on maternity leave policies offered by universities across the United Kingdom shows that institutions with more generous maternity benefits (over and above national statutory provision) have a higher share of female academics who passed productivity-based promotion hurdles in their child-bearing years to become professors. Institutions that employ high-skilled staff do their best to give them incentives to stay.Yet well-paid leave is just one part of the story. I would not have managed to get any research done while on maternity leave or sweep into my old job as I returned from leave if I had been the sole carer of my child with no resources. Between the end of my maternity leave and the start of my child’s nursery entitlement at 12 months I’ve scrambled together a combination of: annual leave, having my partner stay home full-time with the child, unpaid help from extended family and paid babysitters.I was privileged to have had these options. What about those who do not?Note: entitlements in place as of April 2016.Source: OECD Family Database (Table PF2.1).Read more:Global indicators of family policies compiled by the WORLD Policy Analysis Center at the University of California, Los Angeles.An OECD brief ‘Parental leave: Where are all the fathers? Men’s uptake of parental leave is rising but still low’ (2016) Yekaterina Chzhen is the lead author of the newly released UNICEF report “Are the world’s richest countries family friendly?”. Follow her on Twitter @kat_chzhen. The Office of Research–Innocenti, is UNICEF’s dedicated research centre. It undertakes research on emerging or current issues to inform the strategic directions, policies and programmes of UNICEF and its partners, shape global debates on child rights and development, and inform the global research and policy agenda for all children, and particularly for the most vulnerable. Please follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

 It is no surprise that children who are bullied do worse in academic tests. However, after  re-analyzing children’s reading test data for 30 school systems in some of the world’s richest countries, we found that an environment of bullying drags everyone’s achievement down, not just that of the victims. We published our findings on bullying and more indicators contributing to educational inequalities in a recent UNICEF report “An Unfair Start: Inequality in Children’s Education in Rich Countries”.The share of fourth-grade students who reported they were bullied at least monthly ranged from 25% in Finland to 60% in New Zealand (see figure below).Nearly half of children in the US (45 %) reported they were bullied at least once a month.One in three (33%) of these children said they were bullied on a weekly basis, one of the highest levels in the comparison (ahead of only nine of 30 school systems in the study). Our research shows that  school-level prevalence of weekly bullying is associated with significantly lower individual reading test scores in 24 of the 30 school systems. In the United States, a one percentage point difference in school-level bullying is associated with 1.1 score points lower reading achievement, one of the strongest correlations in the study. The association is greater in only three other countries in the comparison- Chile, Ireland and Sweden, all of which had lower rates of bullying victimization than the US.Only 6% of children in the US sample were in schools where no one reported being bullied weekly and a quarter were in schools with a bullying prevalence of 20% or greater. This amounts to a difference in reading scores of 22 points. This is a large effect, especially as it remains after we have accounted for a host of other factors linked to children’s reading achievement: the child’s gender and age, the language of testing and the language the child speaks at home, the location of the school, whether the child comes to school hungry or tired, or has breakfast on school days, as well as the share of students from disadvantaged families in the school (reported by the principal).It is now understood that childhood bullying casts a “long shadow” on both the victims and perpetrators, but a more nuanced understanding of how it affects bystanders is over-due. Children who get victimized as well as those who bully others tend to suffer from ill health and poor employment outcomes as they grow into adulthood. Yet our findings suggest that even children who are not necessarily involved in bullying end up being dragged down in their academic achievement.Our research demonstrates that anti-bullying interventions need to consider the whole school context, while the evaluations of such interventions should measure the impacts on children not directly involved in peer violence.  Read more:UNICEF Innocenti’s working paper: Developing a Global Indicator on Bullying of School-Aged ChildrenFor global bullying statistics and examples of anti-bullying policies and interventions, see the 2016 United Nations report “Ending the Torment: Tackling Bullying from the Schoolyard to Cyberspace”.Yekaterina Chzhen is the lead author of the newly released UNICEF report An Unfair Start: Inequality in Children’s Education in Rich Countries. The Office of Research–Innocenti, is UNICEF’s dedicated research centre. It undertakes research on emerging or current issues to inform the strategic directions, policies and programmes of UNICEF and its partners, shape global debates on child rights and development, and inform the global research and policy agenda for all children, and particularly for the most vulnerable. Please visit us on Twitter and Facebook.  

The way countries define poverty is going to matter for their probability of achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1, Target 1.2. It calls for reducing at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions by 2030. This means that national governments can establish the standards against which they will be measuring progress in just over a decade. For example, if we measure multidimensional poverty in a way that the starting rate is too high, we will struggle to halve it. Define it at too low a level, and further progress may be harder to achieve. Try to game Target 1.2 by fudging your dimensions and you betray the spirit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). So how can governments define multidimensional poverty in a way that halving the poverty rate will be realistic and amenable to policy intervention, while representing a true improvement in people’s well-being? In a recent paper we simulate different scenarios for lowering multidimensional child poverty in two small middle-income post-socialist European countries: Armenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Their UNICEF offices carried out child poverty studies using data from household budget surveys collected in 2011-2013. UNICEF chose the dimensions of child poverty in consultation with government and civil society counterparts to reflect national standards and priorities. Each study used seven dimensions of poverty from this list: clothing, education or educational resources, housing, information access, leisure, nutrition, social participation or social relations, and utilities. UNICEF had initiated these studies before the SDGs had been adopted, so no one worried about halving the resulting poverty rate by 2030 when they were coming up with a definition of poverty. The rate of multidimensional child poverty was twice as high in Armenia as in BiH: four in five (80%) versus two in five (40%) school-age children, respectively, were deprived in two or more out of seven dimensions. There were differences between the two countries in the intensity of multidimensional child poverty and way various dimensions interacted with each other. In BiH, one dimension influenced child poverty disproportionately (i.e. information access) and was not highly correlated with other dimensions. In contrast, no single dimension dominated in Armenia, and the majority of children deprived in two or more were deprived in four dimensions (i.e. leisure, housing, social relations, and utilities). ...if all school-age children in BiH had a networked computer at home (i.e. no deprivation in information access), the multidimensional poverty rate would go down by more than one-third (35%). This goes a long way towards halving poverty to reach the Target 1.2.To understand the mechanics of reducing multidimensional child poverty, we simulated several scenarios of lowering deprivation in different dimensions at a time. We played around with switching the deprivation status from 1 “deprived” to 0 “non-deprived” for a random selection of children in the dataset for different combinations of deprivations. For example, if all school-age children in BiH had a networked computer at home (i.e. no deprivation in information access), the multidimensional poverty rate would go down by more than one-third (35%). This goes a long way towards halving poverty to reach the Target 1.2. An alternative, but similarly effective strategy for BiH, would be to eliminate the correlation between the two dimensions that have the highest deprivation count (i.e. information access and leisure), while maintaining the proportion of children deprived in each of them. As long as it is no longer the same children who are deprived in both of these dimensions, but some deprived in one and others in the other, the overall multidimensional poverty headcount would also fall by over one-third (35%). However, these strategies would not work in Armenia, where the majority of school-age children are deprived in two out of four dimensions at once and no single dimension stands out. Of the four scenarios we considered, the best we could do would be to lower the poverty rate by just over one-quarter (28%) by halving the deprivation rates in three dimensions and reducing it by one-tenth in the other four. We also simulated the effects of giving different amounts cash to the households where multidimensionally poor children live. We did this by modelling the associations between household consumption and children’s deprivations in different dimensions. Cash transfers to the poor can be a powerful tool for improving children’s outcomes in nutrition, health and education, to name just a few (see https://transfer.cpc.unc.edu/). Some deprivations (e.g. nutrition and clothing) are more sensitive to household consumption, so cash transfers would be more effective in tackling them. Others (e.g. utilities) depend more on the local services infrastructure. Our simulations suggest that in a country like BiH, giving all consumption-poor households with children enough money to lift them out of monetary poverty would also eliminate multidimensional child poverty. In a country like Armenia, where children tend to be deprived in a greater number of dimensions simultaneously, even such an expensive strategy would not make a sizeable dent in multidimensional child poverty. We learned from our analysis that a country’s potential to halve multidimensional child poverty by 2030 hinges on the definition of the poverty measure they adopt in the first place. It influences both the “baseline” rate of poverty against which progress will be measured and the policy levers to achieve the goal. An effective strategy is likely to involve a multi-sectoral approach with cash transfers, information provision and investment in public services and infrastructure. Yekaterina Chzhen is a social and economic policy specialist at UNICEF Innocenti. Lucia Ferrone is a consultant with UNICEF Innocenti working on the Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) project, a tool which helps researchers and policy makers to better map and define the impact of poverty in children’s lives. Explore the UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue for new publications. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter and sign up for e-newsletters on any page of the UNICEF Innocenti website. This blog was first published on www.deliver2030.org 

A recent paper in Child Indicators Research (behind a paywall) shows that girls aged 11, 13 and 15 are more likely to suffer from multidimensional poverty than boys in 26 out of 38 high and middle income countries included. England shows the greatest difference in the prevalence of multidimensional poverty between girls and boys – 8 percentage points, followed by Canada, Italy, Latvia and Wales (7 points). Among the six countries with the lowest rates of multidimensional poverty, girls are more likely to be poor in Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden, while there is no statistically significant gender gap in Norway or Iceland. girls are more likely to suffer from several deprivations at once, resulting in higher rates of multidimensional poverty among girls in 60% of the countries studied.Unlike the more standard material aspects of poverty, this study focuses on rights-based outcomes of nutrition, health, protection from violence, and access to information, as well as more relational dimensions of school environment and family environment. Adolescents who are deprived in three or more out of six dimensions are counted as multidimensionally poor. The poverty rate ranges from one in ten in Norway and Sweden to one in three in Bulgaria, Latvia, Russia and Wallonia (Belgium). The Health Behaviour in School-age Children (HBSC) survey was administered separately in the regions of Belgium and Great Britain, allowing for sub-national presentation of the results for these two countries. In only one country, Israel, the gender difference goes the other way: the poverty rate is 5 points higher for boys. Boys in Israel are more likely to suffer from the lack of classmate or teacher support (school environment), to be victims of school-based or cyber-bullying (protection from violence), to report a poor quality of family communication or family support (family environment) and not to use computers on week days (information access). *significant at p<0.05.Source: Chzhen et al 2017, Figure 7 (with added information on statistical significance of the gender gap).Out of the six dimensions, perceived health is the most skewed against girls, as they have higher rates of poor self-reported health and health complaints than boys in every single country. This is in line with other research that shows that girls tend to have poorer self-rated health than boys, with the gender gap largest at age 15. In contrast, information access is disadvantaging boys because they are less likely to use computers on weekdays. However, girls are more likely to suffer from several deprivations at once, resulting in higher rates of multidimensional poverty among girls in 60% of the countries studied. Other dimensions show a more mixed picture. While nutrition appears to be gender-balanced overall, girls are more likely to miss breakfast on weekdays, while boys are less likely to eat fruits and vegetables at least once a week. In protection from violence, girls are more likely to suffer from cyber-bullying, while boys are more subject to (otherwise more prevalent) school-based bullying. The gender gap in deprivation risks in the dimensions of school environment and family environment can also go either way, with boys or girls at a higher risk in different countries. However, there are no gender gaps in these dimensions in the majority of the countries. The study uses UNICEF’s Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) framework, drawing on data from the 2013/14 HBSC survey for 36 European countries, Canada, and Israel. It is children themselves who respond to questions about their lives, rather than parents, teachers or ‘household reference persons’. Adolescence is a critical period in children’s life course, with lasting consequences for adult outcomes. Gender differences among 11-15-year-olds are likely to persist into adulthood. This poses a serious challenge for higher income countries in achieving the universal Sustainable Development Goals. Goal 1 includes a target to reduce poverty in all its dimensions among men, women and children of all ages. Goal 5 calls for achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls, and many other Goals and Targets build on the principles of equality and non-discrimination. The article “Multidimensional Poverty Among Adolescents in 38 Countries”, co-authored by researchers at UNICEF Innocenti and four academic institutions, will be included in a guest-edited special issue of Child Indicators Research on multidimensional child poverty. Read the introduction to the special issue here. Yekaterina Chzhen is a social and economic policy specialist at the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti. She works on multidimensional child poverty, comparative social policy and child well-being. She recently co-edited a book about the impact of the Great Recession on child poverty in rich countries “Children of Austerity” (a free pdf copy is available here). Follow Yekaterina on Twitter at @kat_chzhen. Follow the UNICEF Office of Research at @UNICEFInnocenti.  

The European Union measures child poverty as the share of children living in households with incomes below 60 per cent of the national median, but this indicator tells us little about how children fare within their families. A child living in a well-off household may still be deprived of the possessions, services and social relationships that other children take for granted. This is the so-called ‘Harry Potter style poverty’. The opposite can also be true: children in income-poor households may still enjoy fulfilling relationships with friends and family as well as access to high quality public services. SDG 1 calls for  “reducing at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions”The new Innocenti Report Card 14 Building the Future: Children and the Sustainable Development Goals in Rich Countries ranks 41 advanced economies on 9 measures of social progress for children. The Sustainable Development Goal 1 (SDG 1) calls for  “reducing at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions” (Target 1.2) by 2030. As the SDGs are universal, higher income countries are also called on to monitor progress towards halving the multidimensional poverty rate within 15 years. UNICEF Innocenti has developed a methodology to measure multidimensional child poverty that is rooted in the children’s rights framework (see UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989) and puts the child at the centre of analysis. Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) defines the indicators and dimensions of child poverty using mainly child-specific items, although a few, such as housing quality, are measured at the level of the household. More than 40 lower and middle income countries have conducted national MODA studies. The Innocenti Report Card 14 applied the MODA methodology to a cross-country comparison using data for 28 European Union countries, plus Iceland and Switzerland from the 2009 and 2014 ad-hoc material deprivation modules of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions. Children are counted as multidimensionally poor if they are deprived in at least two dimensions of poverty out of the seven that we have data for - nutrition, clothing, educational resources, leisure activities, social activities, information access and quality of housing. (Please see the working paper for details of the methodology and results). Across the seven dimensions, poverty rates tend to be higher in housing, leisure and social activities than in nutrition, clothing or educational resources. Comparable measures were not available for non-European countries. Report Card 14 includes both multidimensional child poverty and income poverty in the country rankings for SDG 1 “No Poverty”, along with a measure of social transfers’ effectiveness in reducing income poverty. The five Nordic countries, as well as Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, do best in this comparison. In contrast, Bulgaria, Canada, Mexico, Romania and the United States rank lowest due to their high rates of income poverty among children and limited capacity of social transfers to reduce it. The countries’ performance on poverty is the best predictor of their overall ranking across all nine child-relevant goals included in Report Card 14. Only SDG 10 “Inequality” comes near. All the countries in the top third of the summary League Table rank in the top third of the poverty ranking, except Japan, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom that rank in the middle-third on poverty. Similarly, all of the overall bottom-third performers also rank in the bottom third on poverty, except Malta and Slovakia in its middle-third.  All nine goals contribute equally to the summary League Table, which sorts countries according to their average ranking across the nine goals. Yekaterina Chzhen is a social and economic policy specialist at the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti. She works on multidimensional child poverty, comparative social policy and child well-being. She recently co-edited a book about the impact of the Great Recession on child poverty in rich countries “Children of Austerity”. Follow Yekaterina on Twitter at @kat_chzhen. Follow the UNICEF Office of Research at @UNICEFInnocenti.

It has been 10 years since the first tremors were felt in the American sub-prime mortgage market which later rocked the entire planet through a global recession. A new UNICEF Innocenti book “Children of Austerity: Impact of the Great Recession on Child Poverty in Rich Countries” tells the story of how the economic crisis – and government responses to it – impacted upon child poverty in industrialized countries.The narrative picks up where Innocenti Report Card 12 “Children of the Recession” (2014) left off, and gives a detailed account of recent changes in monetary child poverty rates, government policies, and political discourse around child poverty in 11 high-income countries: Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.The case studies for Belgium, Ireland, Hungary, Germany, Sweden and the UK, with more generous social safety nets, underscore the importance of labour market inequalities and structural problems of low education, poor childcare provision and other barriers to work, as well as adequate wages to combat in-work poverty.Drawing on country case studies written by national experts, the editors conclude that lower social transfers and higher taxes worsened the impact of the crisis on the living standards of families and children. Several countries saw cuts in spending on health, education and other public services that hurt families with children in ways that income poverty statistics have not captured.Going beyond national averages, the analysis highlights the economic vulnerability of children in large families, lone parent families, those with a migration background and/or low attachment to the labour market. There are stark regional differences in countries like Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the UK.The 11 case study countries span a wide range in terms of their conditions before the crisis, the severity of the crisis, and their policy responses to it. Their experiences provide valuable lessons for protecting children in both the good times and the bad:Enable parents to work through accessible and affordable childcare services.Protect the incomes of poor families with children through comprehensive and generous child allowances.Ensure that young people have the skills necessary to make a successful transition from school to work and independent living.The evidence in Children of Austerity highlights the importance of increasing social transfers while preserving work incentives. Countries with more fragmented social transfer systems – such as Greece, Japan, Italy, Spain, and the US – need to fill the gaps in their safety nets by increasing coverage rates through a combination of social policies. The US case study shows that its patchwork of targeted programmes may help the working-poor families with children, while largely neglecting out-of-work households.Although adequate income protection is central to addressing child poverty, it is not enough on its own. The case studies for Belgium, Ireland, Hungary, Germany, Sweden and the UK, with more generous social safety nets, underscore the importance of labour market inequalities and structural problems of low education, poor childcare provision and other barriers to work, as well as adequate wages to combat in-work poverty.The volume is edited by Bea Cantillon (University of Antwerp), Yekaterina Chzhen (UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti), Sudhanshu Handa (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), and Brian Nolan (University of Oxford). It includes contributions from 22 authors. For more details about the volume see the publisher’s web page.Yekaterina Chzhen is a social and economic policy specialist at the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti. She co-edited “Children of Austerity” and co-authored four of its chapters. Follow Yekaterina on Twitter at @kat_chzhen. Follow the UNICEF Office of Research at @UNICEFInnocenti.  The opinions expressed in Children of Austerity are those of the authors and editors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or views of UNICEF, nor of any particular Division or Office. 

Research on inequality often loses sight of where children stand in relation to one another. The new Innocenti Report Card Fairness for Children: A league table of inequality in child well-being in rich countries looks at differences between children at the bottom of the inequality ladder, and their peers in the middle, across 41 advanced economies. The report ranks countries according to how far they allow their most disadvantaged children to fall behind in income, educational achievement, self-reported health and life satisfaction. Denmark does best in the overall ranking, with consistently low inequality in four different domains, while Israel and Turkey come out as the most unequal. Inequality tends to evolve over time. Report Card 13 places countries into separate groups based on the pathways behind these changes. For example, the study measures income inequality as the gap between the incomes of the 10th percentile and the median as a percentage of the median. Thus, bottom-end income inequality can increase for two different reasons: The median grows faster than the 10th percentile  OR The 10th percentile shrinks faster than the median   Out of 37 rich countries for which trend data are available, 13 countries saw a substantial increase in the relative income gap among children under 18 between 2008 and 2013. In five of these countries, the median increased faster than the 10th percentile, which may have remained the same or even decreased – Canada, France, Israel, Slovakia and Sweden. The other eight countries experienced an increase in income inequality because both the median and the 10th percentile decreased, but the bottom of the distribution shrank faster. This group includes five southern European countries (Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal) and three eastern European countries (Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia). Only four countries managed to lift incomes of households with children both at the bottom and the middle of the distribution, with a greater relative increase in the 10th percentile: the Czech Republic, Finland, the Republic of Korea and Switzerland. Over the last decade, inequality in adolescent self-reported health also widened in the vast majority of the 34 countries for which comparable data are available. In most of these countries, inequality increased because children at the bottom of the distribution lost out more than those in the middle. Not a single country saw a narrowing in inequality, while a few saw no notable change at all. Yet there is a brighter side to the health story. Inequality in the frequency of physical activity and in abstaining from unhealthy eating (i.e. excess consumption of sugar in food and beverages) narrowed in the majority of the countries. Inequality in life satisfaction remained broadly stable. Trends in educational inequality are also encouraging. Gaps in reading achievement among 15-year-olds who took part in PISA tests decreased substantially in 21 countries out of the 38 between 2006 and 2012. The 10th percentile increased more than the median in all of these countries except Canada. Only three countries saw a widening in the reading achievement gap: Bulgaria (because the 10th percentile increased less than the median) and Finland and Sweden (because the 10th percentile decreased more than the median). We need to remind ourselves continuously that children are not responsible for the circumstances of their birth and upbringing. Lagging far behind their peers can scar children’s current lives and future prospects. With the release of Report Card 13, UNICEF Office of Research encourages rich countries to improve the living conditions, education, health and subjective well-being of all children, with extra help for those left furthest behind. Yekaterina Chzhen is a Social and Economic Policy Specialist with UNICEF Research – Innocenti Follow UNICEF Innocenti on twitter: @UNICEFInnocenti    

7.5 million young people aged 15-24 — roughly the total population of Switzerland — were not in employment, education or training (referred to as 'NEET') across the European Union in 2013. In Greece alone it was one in five, nearly a quarter of a million young people. The UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti will later this year release Report Card #12: Impact of the Great Recession on children in rich countries presenting among other topics a wealth of information on how a generation of young people is slipping further and further away from the kind of productive adulthood taken for granted by their parents. The Great Recession hit young people extremely hard, with the NEET rate shooting up dramatically in most EU countries (Figure 1). The largest absolute increases were recorded in Croatia, Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Romania. At the same time, the US saw the largest increase in the NEET rate across the OECD countries that are not in the EU. Figure 1: Not in education, employment or training (NEET), 15-24, in 2008 and 2013 (%)Source: Eurostat (last update 10.0.4.2014); *Quarterly data from the OECD Society at a Glance 2014 (Q4-2007 and Q4-2012). No data for Chile, Israel or Korea. Annual and quarterly estimates are not directly comparable. Meanwhile, the sharpest decrease across all of the EU and/or OECD countries was observed in Turkey, but even so, with one in four young people NEET in 2013, it still had the highest rate in the comparison. Not surprisingly, the biggest increases in the NEET rate since the financial crisis were in countries that suffered the largest drops in economic output and the greatest increases in unemployment. The 15-24 age group includes young people at different stages in their lives. Young people aged 15-19 are mostly still in compulsory secondary education. The shares of 20-24-year-olds who are neither employed nor in education or training tend to exceed those for the 15-19-year-olds, but even lower rates of NEET among the younger age group are most worrisome, since these young people are most likely not acquiring qualifications (Figure 2). The NEET rate is an indicator of exclusion both from the labour market and education. High NEET rates are a matter for policy concern because they suggest a halted transition from school to work, and a greater involvement of youth in the “informal” economy (OECD 2013). Since many of these young people will struggle to integrate into the labour market, there will be higher longer term individual and societal costs. Figure 2: NEET rates (15-24) in 2008 and 2013, by age group (%)Source: Eurostat (last update 10.0.4.2014); *OECD Education at a Glance 2013 (years: 2008 and 2011). No data for Chile or Japan. Being unemployed at an early age tends to have lasting negative effects on future wages and employment prospects, as well as on subjective well-being and health. Even those who find employment during the economic crisis may end up on a lower earnings trajectory, with many of them trapped in temporary, intermittent and part-time work. The societal costs include not only the loss of growth and revenue potential, but also the break-down of intergenerational trust, with many young people having no confidence in traditional socio-economic and political institutions. The UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti Report Card #12 coming out in late 2014, investigates the impact of the recent financial and economic crisis on children and young people in rich countries. Yekaterina Chzhen works on the background research that is going into Report Card #12. References: OECD (2013) Education at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators. Paris: OECD.