Publications

La prima parte del Report Card presenta una graduatoria del benessere dell'infanzia in 29 economie avanzate del mondo. La seconda parte esamina ciò che pensano i bambini e gli adolescenti del proprio benessere (e include una graduatoria del livello di soddisfazione dei bambini rispetto alle proprie condizioni di vita). La terza parte analizza i cambiamenti nel benessere dei bambini registrati nelle economie avanzate durante la prima decade del 2000, valutando i progressi di ciascun paese in termini di risultati scolastici, tasso di maternità adolescenziale, livelli di obesità nell'infanzia, diffusione del bullismo e utilizzo di tabacco, alcool e cannabis.

This paper compares the well-being of children across the most economically advanced countries of the world. It discusses the methodological issues involved in comparing children’s well-being across countries and explains how a Child Well-being Index is constructed to rank countries according to their performance in advancing child well-being. The Index uses 30 indicators combined into 13 components, again summarised in 5 dimensions for 35 rich countries. Data from various sources are combined to capture aspects of child well-being: material well-being, health, education, behaviour and risks, housing and environment. The scores for the countries on all variables and combinations of variables are discussed in detail. The Child Well-being Index reveals that serious differences exist across countries suggesting that in many, improvement could be made in the quality of children’s lives.

The analysis shows that the rankings are relatively stable: indeed, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries are still in the best performing group while the United States is still in the bottom of the ranking. Data analysis also highlights a common pattern for East European countries as material conditions improved and the behaviour of young people became more similar to their peers living in Western economies even though children’s living conditions have not improved overall. On the whole, Norway, Portugal and the United Kingdom recorded the most positive changes, while Poland, Spain and Sweden recorded the most negative changes.

Changes in subjective well-being during the last decade are analysed. The paper then explores the relationships between subjective well-being and objective domains: material, health, education, behaviour and housing and environment. The relationship between subjective well-being and structural indicators is explored further. The paper concludes that subjective well-being should be included in comparative studies of well-being but not necessarily as just another domain within a general deprivation count. Subjective well-being (or the lack thereof) is related to but not a part of (material) child deprivation.

In response to persistent inequities, there is a global imperative to address the underlying causes of child wellbeing. While remarkable achievements have been made in the last decades in progress in health and survival of children, progress is still lagging in other key dimensions of child wellbeing, a number of which are now recognised as needing fresh attention in both rich and poor countries.

Les précédents rapports de la série des Bilans révèlent que lorsqu’une société ne protège pas les enfants contre la pauvreté, elle commet une erreur très coûteuse. En effet, si les enfants en sont les principales victimes, les pays en subissent également les conséquences et doivent affronter la baisse des compétences et de la productivité, la dégradation des niveaux de santé et d’instruction, l’augmentation du risque de chômage et de dépendance à l’égard de l’aide sociale, l’élévation des coûts de la protection sociale et des systèmes judiciaires, ainsi que l’érosion de la cohésion sociale. D’un point de vue économique, à l’exception du très court terme, la société a donc tout intérêt à prévenir la pauvreté des enfants.

The paper focuses on child deprivation in Europe and studies the degree to which it is experienced by children in 29 countries using a child specific deprivation scale. The paper discusses the construction of a child deprivation scale and estimates a European Child Deprivation Index for the 29 countries using 14 specific child related variables made available by the child module of the EU-SILC 2009 survey. The 29 countries are ranked according to the degree of child deprivation: the results show considerable differences between the countries. The (non-)overlap between child deprivation and child monetary poverty is considerable but limited. In general the results indicate where policy interventions can produce improvements. (REVISED VERSION)

This paper presents and discusses child relative income poverty statistics for 35 economically advanced countries, representing all the members of the European Union, Australia, Canada, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United States. As most of the data refer to the year 2008, the results partly reflect the initial impact of the global economic crisis as well as government responses. According to the data, Nordic countries and the Netherlands present the lowest child relative poverty levels, while Japan, the United States, most of the Southern European countries and some of the new EU member states have among the highest. Several factors are associated with the risk of poverty, such as demographic composition, educational level of household members, labour conditions, but the extent to which these factors influence the risk of poverty vary considerably across countries. Lastly, in several countries the role of government is found to be highly important in reducing child poverty.

Questo rapporto presenta gli ultimi dati comparabili a livello internazionale sulla deprivazione materiale e sulla povertà tra I bambini e gli adolescenti. Insieme, queste due diverse misure offrono un'immagine completa ed esaustiva delle condizioni in cui vivono bambini e adolescenti in alcuni paesi a reddito medio-alto.

Socio-economic research on child well-being and the debate around child indicators has evolved quite rapidly in recent decades. An important contribution to this trend is represented by international comparative research based on multi-dimensional child well-being frameworks: most of this research is based on the comparison of average levels of well-being across countries. This paper tries to respond to the complex challenge of going beyond an approach based on averages and proposes a complementary approach to compare inequality in child well-being in economically advanced countries. In particular, it focuses on the disparities at the bottom-end of the child well-being distribution, by comparing the situation of the ‘median’ child and the situation of the children at the bottom of the well-being scale for nine indicators of material conditions, education and health.

The current global financial and economic crisis, which exacerbates the impacts of the energy and food crises that immediately preceded it, has spread to the developing countries endangering recent gains in terms of economic growth and poverty reduction. The effects of the crisis are likely to vary substantially between countries and between individuals within the same country. Children are among the most vulnerable population, particularly in a period of crisis. Especially in least developed countries, where social safety nets programmes are missing or poorly performing and public fiscal space is extremely limited, households with few economic opportunities are at a higher risk of falling into (monetary) poverty, suffering from hunger, removing children from school and into work, and losing access to health services. This study simulates the impacts of the global economic crisis and alternative policy responses on different dimensions of child welfare in Western and Central Africa (WCA) over the period 2009-2011. It is based on country studies for Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and Ghana, which broadly represent the diversity of economic conditions in WCA countries. In order to capture the complex macro-economic effects of the crisis and the various policy responses - on trade, investment, remittances, aid flows, goods and factor markets - and to then trace their consequences in terms of child welfare - monetary poverty, hunger (caloric poverty), school participation, child labour, and access to health services - a combination of macro- and micro-analysis was adopted. The simulations suggest that the strongest effects are registered in terms of monetary poverty and hunger, although large differences between countries emerge.

During recent decades most affluent countries have experienced large increases in the number and diversity of immigrants, and accordingly it is anticipated that children in immigrant families will play an increasing role in these societies. However, while their social, economic and civic integration is of critical policy relevance, there is little statistical evidence available on this segment of the population. The study helps to fill the knowledge gap by presenting internationally comparable statistics on children in immigrant families in eight affluent countries - Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. The analysis examines family composition, educational background, language, educational and employment status of parents, housing conditions, school and labour market participation and poverty status, among other dimensions, identifying disparities between the situation of these children and that of native-born children. The report calls for policies that facilitate integration and social inclusion of children in immigrant families, focusing particularly on those from low- and middle-income countries who often face greater challenges in assimilation.