Children paying a high price for growing inequality, OECD How’s Life? report finds

OECD | How’s Life? 2015 | Measuring Well-being | Published 13 October 2015

The OECD’s latest How’s Life? shows the extent to which some children are getting a better start in life than others. Income poverty affects one child in seven in OECD countries, while 10% of children live in jobless households. Since the economic crisis, child poverty rates have risen in two thirds of OECD countries. In most OECD countries, the poverty rate for children is higher than for the population in general.

Looking at child well-being for the first time, the report shows how children from more affluent backgrounds tend to have better health and a happier school life. Children from less well-off families find fewer of their classmates to be kind and helpful and are more likely to be bullied at school. Life satisfaction, reading and problem-solving skills, communication with parents and intentions to vote in national elections in later life are all lower among children from less affluent backgrounds. Growing inequality among parents ends up sapping opportunities available to their children.

Report Abstract | Individual Country highlights