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Innocenti Report Card

Innocenti Report Card

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. 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. The reports reveal children’s experiences against the backdrop of their country’s policies and social, educational, economic and environmental contexts.

In keeping with UNICEF's universal mandate for children in every country, the Innocenti Report Card series focuses on the well-being of children in high income countries. Since 2000,  Innocenti Report Cards have shown that even in the world’s richest countries, the daily lives of millions of children fell far short of what anyone would call a good childhood. Each Report Card publication includes league tables ranking OECD and EU countries according to the latest available comparative data.

Visit the microsite for Report Card 16: Worlds of Influence

 

Publications

Worlds of Influence: Understanding What Shapes Child Well-being in Rich Countries
Publication

Worlds of Influence: Understanding What Shapes Child Well-being in Rich 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.
An Unfair Start: Inequality in Children's Education in Rich Countries
Publication

An Unfair Start: Inequality in Children's Education in Rich Countries

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.
Building the Future: Children and the Sustainable Development Goals in Rich Countries
Publication

Building the Future: Children and the Sustainable Development Goals in Rich Countries

This Report Card offers an assessment of child well-being in the context of sustainable development across 41 countries of the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Fairness for Children. A league table of inequality in child well-being in rich countries
Publication

Fairness for Children. A league table of inequality in child well-being in rich countries

An overview of inequalities in child well-being in 41 countries of the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Children of the Recession: The impact of the economic crisis on child well-being in rich countries
Publication

Children of the Recession: The impact of the economic crisis on child well-being in rich countries

This report offers multiple and detailed perspectives on how the recession has affected children in the developed world. Official data have been used to rank the impact on children for countries in the European Union (EU) and/or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). For each country, the extent and character of the crisis’s impact on children has been shaped by the depth of the recession, pre-existing economic conditions, the strength of the social safety net and, most importantly, policy responses.
Child Well-being in Rich Countries: A comparative overview
Publication

Child Well-being in Rich Countries: A comparative overview

The Report card considers five dimensions of children’s lives: material well-being, health and safety, education, behaviours and risks, and housing and environment. In total, 26 internationally comparable indicators have been included in the overview. The Report updates and refines the first UNICEF overview of child well-being published in 2007 (Report Card 7 ). Changes in child well-being over the first decade of the 2000s are examined.
Measuring Child Poverty: New league tables of child poverty in the world's rich countries
Publication

Measuring Child Poverty: New league tables of child poverty in the world's rich countries

This report sets out the latest internationally comparable data on child deprivation and relative child poverty. Taken together, these two different measures offer the best currently available picture of child poverty across the world's wealthiest nations.
The Children Left Behind: A league table of inequality in child well-being in the world's rich countries
Publication

The Children Left Behind: A league table of inequality in child well-being in the world's rich countries

This Report Card presents a first overview of inequalities in child well-being for 24 of the world’s richest countries. Three dimensions of inequality are examined: material well-being, education, and health. In each case and for each country, the question asked is ‘how far behind are children being allowed to fall?’ Bringing in data from the majority of OECD countries, the report attempts to show which of them are allowing children to fall behind by more than is necessary in education, health and material well-being, using the best performing countries as a minimum standard for what can be achieved.
The Child Care Transition: A league table of early childhood education and care in economically advanced countries
Publication

The Child Care Transition: A league table of early childhood education and care in economically advanced countries

A great change is coming over childhood in the world's richest countries. Today's rising generation is the first in which a majority are spending a large part of early childhood in some form of out-of-home child care. At the same time, neuroscientific research is demonstrating that loving, stable, secure, and stimulating relationships with caregivers in the earliest months and years of life are critical for every aspect of a child’s development. Taken together, these two developments confront public and policymakers in OECD countries with urgent questions. Whether the child care transition will represent an advance or a setback for today's children and tomorrow's world will depend on the response.
Child Poverty in Perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries
Publication

Child Poverty in Perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries

This report builds and expands upon the analyses of Report Card No. 6 which considered relative income poverty affecting children and policies to mitigate it. Report Card 7 provides a pioneering, comprehensive picture of child well being through the consideration of six dimensions: material well-being, health and safety, education, family and peer relationships, subjective well-being, behaviours and lifestyles informed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and relevant academic literature.
Child Poverty in Rich Countries 2005
Publication

Child Poverty in Rich Countries 2005

The proportion of children living in poverty has risen in a majority of the world's developed economies. No matter which of the commonly-used poverty measures is applied, the situation of children is seen to have deteriorated over the last decade. This publication is the sixth in a series of Innocenti Report Cards designed to monitor and compare the performance of the OECD countries in meeting the needs of their children.
A League Table of Child Maltreatment Deaths in Rich Nations
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A League Table of Child Maltreatment Deaths in Rich Nations

In the industrialized world, approximately 3,500 children die every year at the hands of those who should be caring for them. Many more live on with injuries - both physical and emotional. This fifth Report Card analyses and compares child abuse data from the OECD nations and asks why some countries have a better record than others.
A League Table of Educational Disadvantage in Rich Nations
Publication

A League Table of Educational Disadvantage in Rich Nations

This new report from the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre considers the effectiveness of public education systems across the rich nations of the industrialised world. The Report Card takes an overview of several well-respected cross-national surveys into educational performance in an effort to present a big picture of the extent of educational disadvantage in OECD member countries.
A League Table of Teenage Births in Rich Nations
Publication

A League Table of Teenage Births in Rich Nations

The third Innocenti Report Card presents the most up-to-date and comprehensive survey so far of teenage birth rates in the industrialized world. And it attempts at least a partial analysis of why some countries have teenage birth rates that are ten or even fifteen times higher than others.
A League Table of Child Deaths by Injury in Rich Nations
Publication

A League Table of Child Deaths by Injury in Rich Nations

In every one of the world's wealthier nations, injury is now the leading killer of children aged over one. This second Report Card presents, for the first time, a standardized league table ranking 26 of the world's industrialized nations according to their injury death rates for children aged 1 to 14.
A League Table of Child Poverty in Rich Nations
Publication

A League Table of Child Poverty in Rich Nations

The persistence of child poverty in rich countries undermines both equality of opportunity and commonality of values. It therefore confronts the industrialized world with a test both of its ideals and of its capacity to resolve many of its most intractable social problems. This new research asks what can be learned about the causes of child poverty and examines the policies that have contributed to the success of lower rates in some countries.

Events

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

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

This panel discussion, timed with the global launch of Report Card 17, comes at a moment when policymakers are seeking to ensure child well-being during a protracted global pandemic and with mounting climate change challenges.  Join us for a rich discussion with youth activists, policymakers, researchers, and practitioners on shaping better policies for environments and children’s well-being. Panelists to be announced.
Worlds of Influence: Shaping policies for child well-being in rich countries
Event

Worlds of Influence: Shaping policies for child well-being in rich countries

UNICEF Innocenti’s Report Card 16 – Worlds of Influence: Understanding what shapes child well-being in rich countries – offers a mixed picture of children’s health, skills and happiness. For far too many children, issues such as poverty, exclusion and pollution threaten their mental well-being, physical health and opportunities to develop skills. The evidence from 41 OECD and EU countries tells a comprehensive 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.This panel discussion, timed with the global launch of Report Card 16, comes at a moment when policy makers are asking deep questions about how to ensure child well-being in the light of one of the worst global pandemics in many decades. In it, we delve deeply into the findings of Report Card 16 to better understand how its findings may shape the increasingly uncertain world children are living in. And we examine how the comparative data in this and previous editions of Report Card can support policies for child well-being, looking at previous outcome-based indicators as well as newer context and conditions indicators which are presented in the latest edition of Report Card.Confirmed panelists:Senator Rosemary Moodie, CanadaMr. Nicolas Schmit, European Commissioner for Jobs and Social RightsMs. Denitsa Sacheva, Minister of Labour and Social Policy, BulgariaMr. Fayaz King, Deputy Executive Director,  Field Results and Innovation, UNICEFMr. Dominic Richardson, Chief of Social and Economic Policy, UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti