Child inequality in rich countries

"In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration."

 - UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 (Article 3)

With the gap between the rich and the poor at its highest level for some three decades in most Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, there is now a renewed focus on questions of fairness and social justice surrounding inequality. These questions have a special resonance when inequalities among children, rather than adults, are the focus of attention. Social inequalities among adults may be justifiable if they have arisen through fair competition and under conditions of equality of opportunity. But when it comes to children, the social and economic circumstances they face are beyond their control, and so differences in merit cannot reasonably be advanced as justification for inequalities among them. The Unicef publication 'Fairness for Children: A league table of inequality in child well-being in rich countries' presents an overview of inequalities in child well-being in 41 countries of the European Union (EU) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It focuses on 'bottom-end inequality' - the gap between children at the bottom and those in the middle - and addresses the question 'how far behind are children being allowed to fall?' in income, education, health and life satisfaction.

The publication is divided into eight sections. The first section ranks countries according to how far children at the bottom are allowed to fall behind their peers in income, education, health, and life satisfaction. It also provides an overall league table of inequality in child well-being that summarises performance across all four of these dimensions. The measures of inequality in the league tables are put into context through the use of indicators that capture how many children in each country have low income, low educational achievement, poor health or low levels of life satisfaction. This offers a wider picture of how far children's rights are being upheld in rich countries. 

The league tables presented in Section-2 compare countries on the basis of how far children are being allowed to fall behind. The scale of the gaps between children at the bottom and in the middle can be very large. For example, the income of a child at the bottom end in Bulgaria, Mexico and Romania is only a third of that of an average child in the same countries. In Sweden and Finland, the gap in reading between a 15-year-old student at the bottom end and the average student is equivalent to more than three years of schooling.

Sections 3, 4, 5 and 6 offer a more detailed exploration of trends in inequality affecting income, education, health, and life satisfaction, respectively.

Each of these sections also considers the impacts of inequality on child well-being. Section 7 returns to the general question of fairness and inequality, considering the extent to which child well-being in rich countries is shaped by deeply rooted social and economic inequalities over which children have no control. 

The last section of this well-documented report presents conclusions and recommendations. Analysis in this 'Report Card' suggests the following principles and recommendations for governments to consider in strengthening child well-being: i) Protecting the incomes of households with the poorest children. ii) Focusing on improving the educational achievements of disadvantaged learners. iii) Promoting and supporting healthy lifestyles for all children. iv) Taking subjective well-being seriously. V) Placing equity at the heart of child well-being agendas.  

Producing better data for informed public debate and a more comprehensive picture of child well-being is essential. To this end this publication recommends: i) The availability, timeliness and usefulness of information about the well-being of children in rich countries should be improved. As part of this process, governments and national statistical agencies should continue to work together more closely to harmonise surveys, wherever possible. ii) Data sets should track children through different stages of their life. Such analysis is particularly powerful for an exploration of the temporality of child well-being and the factors that shape child well-being. iii) Children's voices should be built into data-collection processes. Efforts should be made to capture child-derived measures of well-being more systematically and to understand better the particular contexts in which child well-being improves.

The writer is an independent researcher.

 [email protected]

.........................................................