US and UK
worst places in developed world to be a child
Sat, 2007-02-17 00:58
By Ann Talbot World Socialist Web Site
The United States and Britain are the worst
places in the major industrialized nations to be
a child, according to a new report produced by
UNICEF. The organization, which usually
highlights the plight of child soldiers and
children living in poverty in the so-called
developing world, has turned the spotlight on 21
wealthy OECD countries. Its findings have exposed
the appalling results of growing social
inequality in both the UK and US. The report
thoroughly refutes the claims of both governments
to be reducing child poverty.
Its a pretty bleak picture,
said Professor Jonathan Bradshaw. Bradshaw, a
leading social scientist at York University in
the UK, compiled the report and was speaking at
its launch.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the report
is the high level of unhappiness reported in
children living in the US and Britain. Bradshaw
ascribed this to the dog-eat-dog
attitude that prevails. In a society which
is very unequal, with high levels of poverty, it
leads on to what children think about themselves
and their lives. Thats really whats
at the heart of this, he said.
For the first time, this report has drawn the
link between the widening levels of social
inequality in the UK and US and the extremely
high levels of risk-taking behavior such as
substance abuse and underage sex in both
countries. Its statistical tables reveal a
picture of misery worthy of Hogarth. Throughout
its pages, the authors are at pains to point out
that they are dealing with relative poverty and
that in comparison with the past, educational
standards and living conditions have improved.
But the statistics speak for themselves. The
report is all the more horrifying for the
measured tone that it takes.
The UK and US have the highest percentage of
children living in relative poverty, which is
defined as less than 50 percent of the national
median. By this measure, more than 20 percent of
American children and around 16 percent of
British children are growing up in poverty.
How are we to explain these figures? Bradshaw
pointed to two decades of neglect in the UK.
Child poverty, he said, is twice the level it was
in 1979. Experts called on to comment seemed
astonished that the figures in Britain could be
so high when the Labor government of Tony Blair,
and particularly the Chancellor Gordon Brown, has
made the reduction of child poverty such a
flagship policy. Browns Child Tax Credit
scheme was supposed to lift children out of
poverty. The report exposes such claims as a
fraud. As Bradshaw says about the US and Britain,
What they have in common are very high
levels of inequality.... They dont invest
as much in children as continental European
countries do.
The poverty the report exposes is the result of a
massive shift in wealth to the richest members of
society, partly, but by no means solely, due to
the elimination of welfare programmes.
The UK and the US have levels of child poverty
comparable to those in Spain, Italy and Portugal.
These southern European countries came late to
industrialization and endured decades of fascist
rule. This is not the case in the UK and the US.
This is also reflected in the figures for
Ireland. Ireland has had high levels of economic
growth in the 1990s, and its economy has become
known as the Celtic Tiger. But the results of
that growth have been unevenly distributed. Child
poverty in Ireland stands at 15 percent, among
the highest in the OECD.
Nor is child poverty the result of unemployment.
Fewer than 8 percent of UK children live in
households without at least one working parent.
In the US, the figure is even lower, with fewer
than 2 percent of poor children having no working
parent. The UNICEF report reveals the true scale
of the working poor in both these countries and
the toll it is taking on the quality of young
lives.
Britain and the US move up the scale when poverty
is measured in terms of material possessions such
as cars, televisions, computers, etc. More
children in the UK and US live in families that
have these consumer goods, but that still does
not raise them from the bottom of the scale when
the childs total well-being is measured.
The actual deprivation experienced is perhaps
better expressed in terms of the high proportion
of 15-year-olds in both these countries who
report fewer than 10 books in their homes.
When it comes to the health and safety of
children, the US is down at the bottom of the
league table, with the UK well below average. The
US has one of the highest levels of death from
accidents and injuries.
These figures were based on some of the most
fundamental health indicators. They include the
health of infants under one year old,
immunization rates from 12 to 23 months, and the
number of accidents to children under the age of
19.
Both the UK and US are in the bottom third of the
scale for infant mortality, which is one of the
most widely accepted standards for social
development internationally. Compared to other
OECD countries, the UK and the US have extremely
high rates of infant mortality.
Similarly, they have among the highest levels of
low-birth-weight babies. A low birth weight is
associated with an increased risk to life and
health among infants and to impaired cognitive
and physical development throughout childhood. It
is also indicative of deprivation in the mother.
The birth-weight figures for the US and UK point
to two generations in poverty. These low birth
weights chart the decline in living standards for
the mass of population in these countries since
the gains of welfare programmes began to be
attacked.
Despite its National Health Service, the UK has
among the lowest rates of immunization among OECD
countries. Although immunization rates in all
OECD countries are higher than in developing
countries, the standard must be high to ensure
herd immunity from common childhood
killer diseases. As the report points out there
is also the danger that small differences in
levels indicate a failure to reach the
unreached and may suggest that children of
marginalized groups are missing out on basic
health services.
Childrens educational well-being was
assessed on the basis of average achievements in
reading literacy, mathematical literacy and
science literacy, the percentage of children
remaining in education between the ages of 15 to
19, the percentage of 15- to 19-year-olds not in
education, employment or training, and the
percentage of this age group expected to find
low-skilled employment. Scored on this basis, the
US comes in below average and the UK well below
average. France and Austria also do badly, while
Poland, one of the poorest of the OECD countries,
is the third highest.
It is when the figures are broken down into their
component parts that the true extent of social
inequality in the US and UK is revealed. They
both rank among the lowest for the proportion of
15- to 19-year-olds in full-time or part-time
education. These figures mean that a high
proportion of children in the UK and the US are
being excluded from all but the lowest-skilled
and lowest-paid jobs.
Some of the most disturbing data in the report
relates to the more qualitative areas of social
life. When children were asked about the quality
of their relations with their family and friends,
the US and UK were at the bottom of the scale.
The UKs score can barely fit on the same
scale as the rest of the table. These cold
statistics point to a truly terrible social
situation and suggest that a remarkable number of
children in the US and UK do not enjoy satisfying
and supportive social relations, either in the
family or outside of it.
Indicators used included the percentage of
children living in single-parent families and
step-parent families, the percentage of children
who report eating the main meal of the day with
parents more than once a week, the percentage of
children who report parents spend time just
talking to them, and the percentage of 11-,
13- and 15-year-olds who report finding their
peers kind and helpful.
Eighty percent of the children studied were in
fact living in two-parent families, so the
results are not particularly related to the issue
of marriage breakdown. The US and the UK have the
highest proportion of children living in
one-parent and step-parent families. But they
have a relatively high percentage of children who
report spending time just talking to
their parentsno mean feat given the long
working hours in both countries.
It is when children are asked about their
relationships with their peers that a striking
difference emerges. Fewer than half of the UK
children questioned found their peers kind
and helpful. This result merely hints at
the toll of misery suffered as a result of the
bullying, conflict, rivalry and tension that
these children encounter on a daily basis.
The psychological impact of the poor quality of
social relations in the UK and the US is
indicated by the health behavior and high level
of risk-taking among young people in both
countries. Risk-taking was measured in terms of
levels of obesity, substance abuse and sexual
risk-taking. Again, the UK results could barely
fit on the table, and the results for the US were
not much better.
Health behavior was measured by the percentage of
children who eat breakfast, eat fruit daily, are
physically active or are overweight. Risk-taking
was measured by the percentage of 15-year-olds
who smoke, have been drunk more than twice, use
cannabis, are having sex, or use condoms, and the
incidence of teenage pregnancy.
The experience of violence was measured by the
percentage of 11-, 13- and 15-year-olds who
reported being involved in a fight during the
last 12 months and the percentage who reported
being bullied in the last 2 months.
By these measures, childrens health
behaviors were worst in the US. The UK has one of
the lowest proportions of children who eat fruit
every day. The US has the highest proportion of
overweight children, although it has one of the
highest physical activity levels. It is, however,
difficult to make much of this because the
question asked of children was how many were
physically active for one hour or more in
the previous/typical week.
What is beyond dispute is that the level of
obesity in the US pushes the overall figure for
poor health behaviors so far above average. In
both countries, childrens diet is dominated
by the products of the major food manufacturers
and fast food outlets.
Simple activities such as walking or cycling to
school have declined. Even organized physical
activities cannot combat the unhealthy imbalance
that has been created in these childrens
lives.
When it comes to risk behaviors such as excessive
drinking, smoking, substance abuse and
unprotected sex, children in the UK are in far
greater danger than in any other OECD country.
Almost one third of 15-year-olds in the UK
reported that they have been drunk on more than
one occasion. The figures for cannabis use are
similar in both the UK and the US.
The figures for 15-year-olds who have sex vary
from 15 to 28 percent. Most of these report using
condoms, but both the US and the UK have
extremely high levels of teenage pregnancy. The
authors of the report comment:
Teenage fertility levels may also serve as
an indicator of an aspect of young peoples
lives that is otherwise hard to capture. To a
young person with little sense of current
well-beingunhappy and perhaps mistreated at
home, miserable and under-achieving at school,
and with only an unskilled and low-paid job to
look forward tohaving a baby to love and be
loved by, with a small income from benefits and a
home of her own, may seem a more attractive
option than the alternatives.
When children are asked their own opinion of
their well-being, the UK scores lowest. Children
were asked how they rated their own health,
whether they like their school, and where they
would place themselves on a life-satisfaction
scale. Whatever material factors go into
producing this opinion, the report demonstrates
that a high proportion of children in the UK and
the US are unhappy. In both, a high proportion of
children perceive their own health to be poor,
and fewer of them thought of themselves as
satisfied with their lives than their
contemporaries in other countries.
|