14 April 2016: Even in high-income countries, inequality affects children’s well-being, finds a report by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The report examines bottom-end inequality of income, health, education and life satisfaction among 41 countries in the EU and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

‘Fairness for Children: A league table of inequality in child well-being in rich countries’ is the 13th Innocenti Report Card from UNICEF’s Office of Research in Florence, Italy. The report card ranks countries “according to how far children at the bottom of the distribution fall below their peers in the middle.” Denmark has the least inequality among children, while Israel ranked the lowest, followed by Turkey.

The report highlights progress in a few areas, including narrowing bottom-end inequality in reading achievement in most countries, and addressing inequality on poor diet and physical activity gaps. However, on life satisfaction, girls aged 13 and 15 report lower life satisfaction than boys in all countries, and among the ten countries with data on country of birth, seven found lower life satisfaction among migrant children.

Spain and the US have improved in all four health indicators since 2002, with Estonia, Ireland, Latvia and Poland making progress in addressing education inequality. The report notes that Japan and the US, two of the wealthiest countries, fall into the bottom third in terms of income inequality.

Sarah Cook, UNICEF, said the Report Card provides a “clear reminder” that children’s well-being is not an inevitable outcome of individual circumstances, nor of the level of economic development. Instead, it is “shaped by policy choices,” she said, also stressing the life-long and inter-generational consequences of inequality.

The report recommends that governments strengthen child well-being by: protecting the incomes of households with the poorest children; placing equity at the heart of child well-being agendas; improving the educational achievements of disadvantaged learners; promoting and supporting healthy lifestyles for all children; and taking seriously subjective well-being.

UNICEF launched the report at the National Library of France, on 14 April 2016, in Paris, at an event including a panel discussion on inequality of child well-being in rich countries, with a focus on next steps to address inequality. [Publication: Fairness for Children] [UNICEF Press Release] [UN Press Release] [Launch Event]