UK children are left behind

A new UNICEF report, The Children Left Behind, examines child inequality in 24 developed countries, ranking countries in terms of how far the most disadvantaged children fall behind those at the median level in health, educational and material well-being. The study finds that children in the UK are more disadvantaged in terms of material well-being than the large majority of other rich countries. The UK comes nineteenth out of the 24 countries, well below France and Germany, though above the US.

UNICEF UK’s Executive Director David Bull said:

Tackling income poverty should remain the number one priority for Government to reduce child inequality in the UK. At a time of austerity we must not widen this gap.

Children living in poverty must not pay the price for reducing the deficit and should be the first to be protected. Household income must be central to next year’s child poverty strategy.

Singling out the importance of income, the report comments that:

one of the most disturbing aspects of changed economic times is that full time employment no longer guarantees a life lived above the poverty line.

The UK was also found to have a particularly high level of inequality in access to basic educational resources at home.

In response to the report, UNICEF UK is calling on the government to:

• set ambitious interim targets in next year’s child poverty strategy that must include benefits and income.
• apply a ‘fairness’ test to all proposed changes to the benefit, tax, health and education systems to ensure that new policies do not increase inequality between children.
• design the new universal credit to ensure that no family with children has to live on less than a living wage.
• promote the living wage.

PSE 2011 is a major collaboration between the University of Bristol, Heriot-Watt University, The Open University, Queen's University Belfast, University of Glasgow and the University of York working with the National Centre for Social Research and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.