U.S., British children worst off in industrialized world, while
Dutch children do best
BERLIN, Feb. 14, 2007
By JOSH WARD Associated Press Writer
Access the report at
http://www.unicef.org/media/files/ChildPovertyReport.pdf
The United States and Britain ranked at the bottom of a U.N.
survey released Wednesday evaluating the well-being of children
in wealthy countries.
The Netherlands topped the report issued by UNICEF, followed by
other European countries with strong social welfare systems _
Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
Among the report's overall findings was that wealth alone did
not guarantee a child's well-being, with some poorer countries
scoring ahead of richer ones. The U.S. and Britain finished 20th
and 21st overall, respectively, behind Poland, the Czech
Republic and Hungary.
The British government immediately criticized the report, saying
it used old data that did not measure recent improvements in
things like teen pregnancies.
UNICEF ranked 21 industrialized countries in six categories:
material well-being, health and safety, education, peer and
family relationships, behaviors and risks, and young people's
own subjective sense of well-being.
The U.S. was last for health and safety, measured by rates of
infant mortality, low birth weight, immunization, and deaths
from accidents and injuries.
Britain was last in the family and peer relationships ranking,
which measured such things as the rate of single-parent families
and whether families ate the main meal of the day together more
than once a week.
Britain also finished at the bottom in behaviors and risks,
which considered factors such as the percentage of children who
ate breakfast, consumed fruit regularly, were overweight, used
drugs or alcohol or were sexually active.
The U.S. was second from the bottom in both of those categories.
The British government said information used in the study did
not take note of recent improvements in education, health and
general living standards. Some of the statistics went back as
far as 2000 or 2001, it said.
"In many cases the data used is several years old and does not
reflect more recent improvements such as the continuing fall in
the teenage pregnancy rate or in the proportion of children
living in workless households," said a spokeswoman for British
Department for Education and Skills, on customary condition of
anonymity.
She said reforms introduced to tackle "teenage smoking,
drinking, and risky sexual behavior ... are delivering
improvements that are making real differences to children's lives."
Opposition Liberal Democrat lawmaker Annette Brooke said the
report reflected a "shameful level of child poverty" in Britain.
"It is shocking that we are doing so badly at bringing up our
children," Brooke said. "Every child should be entitled to live
in a stable, loving family environment."
Marta Santos Pais, the study's director, said future reports
would devote even more energy to assessing how children perceive
their own well-being and needs.
"Very often we base our assessment and governments shape their
policies on the basis of what adults feel the policy measures
are achieving," she said. "It's always important to see how the
beneficiaries of those policies are assessing the impact of the
policies."
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