New UNICEF Report Card on child wellbeing in rich countries is launched

Among its authors are Dr Dominic Richardson (DPhil Social Policy York 2006), Dr Yekaterina Chzhen (DPhil Social Policy York 2010) and Dr Gwyther Rees (Honorary Research Fellow, Social Policy York). Child well-being report card (PDF , 2,333kb) is the 16th in a series that York researchers have contributed to since 1997 including Professor John Hudson (current HoD SPSW), Professor Peter Whiteford (now at ANU DPhil Social Policy York 1994) and Emeritus Professor of Social Policy Jonathan Bradshaw.

 

The Report Card finds that the UK has the third from lowest child life satisfaction out of 37 countries. Dr Gwyther Rees the main author said "The UK doesn't do well either on academic or social skills. Yet the UK has all the general ingredients for good child wellbeing - top third of countries for the three aspects of context - economic, society and environment. But it is doing less well for child-specific policies.

 

For social policy it has above-average and increasing child poverty, it also ranks poorly on family policy (parental leave and childcare). For health policy: measles immunization is lower than average, below herd immunity levels and falling. Given its good context and wealth, it could really be doing a lot better with child-specific policies of this kind."