Child Poverty
in the Midstof Wealth1Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

InnocentiInnocenti
ReportCard 18
Report Card 18

Executive summary
In a time of general prosperity, more than 69 million children live in poverty in some of theworld’s richest countries.
Poverty is often defined by income. But for most children, poverty is about more than justmoney. It is about growing up in a home without enough heat or nutritious food. Poverty
means no new clothes, no telephone and no money for a birthday celebration.
For the eighteenth edition of the Innocenti Report Card, UNICEF Innocenti examined childpoverty in the high-income and upper middle-income countries in the European Union (EU)and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This Report
Card provides an assessment of the current state of child poverty and the progress – orlack of progress – that these countries made towards eliminating it.

Key findings
The foundation of Report Card 18 is a ranking of countries based on their most recent
rates of child income poverty and the proportional change in that rate over a seven-year
period (2012–2014 and 2019–2021). It places:→Slovenia, Poland and Latvia at the top of the ranking.
→The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Türkiye and Colombia areat the bottom of the ranking
Overall, the percentage of children who live in poverty in 40 countries of the EU and OECD,
dropped by about 8 per cent during a period of about seven years – which translates to
6 million fewer children in poverty. However, the rates of child poverty vary. For example:→In Denmark, Finland and Slovenia, about 1 in 10 children lives in poverty.
→In Bulgaria, Colombia, Italy, Mexico, Romania, Spain, Türkiye and the United States ofAmerica more than 1 in 4 children lives in poverty.
Some countries used period of general prosperity to address child poverty, while others let
the opportunity pass. For example:→Poland reduced child poverty by 38 per cent.
→Slovenia, Latvia and Lithuania reduced child poverty by more than 30 per cent.
→France, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland saw increases in child poverty of at least
10 per cent→In the United Kingdom, child poverty increased by about 20 per cent.

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Supporting children and families
Report Card 18 highlights the role of cash benefits, which are among the most effective
ways to support children and families and alleviate child poverty. In 21 of the 39 countries
with available data, low-income families received less support from cash benefits in 2022
than they did in 2012.
There was also progress. Slovenia and Poland, the top two countries in the UNICEF
Innocenti ranking, made strides in reducing poverty. For Slovenia, the key to success was
improving living standards by increasing the minimum wage. In Poland, the government’s
decision to increase cash benefits for families helped to reduce child poverty.
But much more is needed. In addition to providing adequate cash benefits for children andfamilies, eliminating poverty requires governments to invest in multiple services that touchchildren’s lives, including education, health and nutrition and to develop effective labour
market policies.
In 2015, the world rallied around the Sustainable Development Goals, which featured an
ambitious challenge: to eliminate extreme poverty and halve poverty in all its forms by
2030, everywhere. In the high-income and upper middle-income countries of the EU andOECD, some progress has been made. However, there is much more to do to end childpoverty in the midst of wealth.

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Contents
Executive summary............................................................................................................. 2
Introduction......................................................................................................................... 5
League Table.
UNICEF Innocenti ranking of child poverty in OECD and EU countries	������������������������ 8
Part 1
The current picture............................................................................................................ 10
Monetary poverty......................................................................................................... 10
Persistent child poverty................................................................................................. 13
Non-monetary poverty (deprivations)............................................................................ 15Children’s subjective experiences of poverty................................................................ 18
Inequalities in child poverty........................................................................................... 19
Part 2
Trends in child poverty...................................................................................................... 23
Trends in non-monetary poverty.................................................................................... 30
Part 3Social protection for children........................................................................................... 33
Expenditure on social protection................................................................................... 36
The adequacy of transfers............................................................................................. 38
The effectiveness of social protection benefits in reducing child poverty	���������������������41
Lessons learned and recommendations......................................................................... 44
Review of key points..................................................................................................... 44
What can countries do to eradicate child poverty?....................................................... 47
Technical Appendix............................................................................................................ 50

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Introduction“The persistence of child poverty in rich countries
undermines both equality of opportunity and commonalityof values. It therefore confronts the industrialized world
with a test both of its ideals and of its capacity to resolve
many of its most intractable social problems.”
These words began the first Innocenti Report Card, published in 2000. Sadly, theyremain largely true today – 23 years and 17 Report Cards later. As this report willshow, progress has been made. Poland, Slovenia, Latvia and Lithuania have achieved
remarkable reductions in child poverty in recent years. Outside Europe, the Republic ofKorea, Canada and Japan have made the most progress. This report discusses what canbe learned from these successes. On the other hand, in many countries, child poverty
rates are static. In others, such as the United Kingdom, Iceland, France, Switzerland andNorway, many more children lived in poor households in 2021 than a decade earlier atthe end of the 2008–2010 recession.
Across 40 of the world’s richest countries,1 over 69 million children are living in income
poverty. Poverty is a blight on their childhoods, and the consequences of being poor last alifetime. Children in poor households have much reduced chances of completing a goodeducation.2 In some countries, a person born in a deprived area is likely to live 8–9 years
fewer than a person born in a wealthy area.3
Tackling child poverty is therefore a matter of basic rights and of justice. The goal of thisreport is not only to review the status of child poverty in countries that are members of
the OECD and/or the EU and the progress made in tackling it over the past decade, butalso to consider what more needs to be done in the future. Levels of child poverty depend
greatly on the effectiveness of government actions. An important lesson from the 2008–2010 recession was that the right types of poverty reduction policies can shield children
from the harmful effects of crises.4
The report picks up from the last Report Card to focus on child poverty, published in 2014,
which analysed the impacts of that recession. It painted a contrasting picture. Somecountries witnessed substantial reductions in child poverty between 2008 and 2012, whileothers saw substantial increases. Some countries – Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg andSpain – had lost 10 years or more of progress in reducing child poverty.
Much has happened since 2012. The years following the recession were a period of stableeconomic growth in the group of countries in this report. This was an opportunity to tackle
child poverty which, as we will show, some countries took while others did not. Since
2020, the global outlook has become increasingly challenging and uncertain. A review ofthe status of child poverty in some of the world’s richest nations is therefore timely.

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This Report Card:→ Presents the most up-to-date comparable picture of child poverty in OECD/EU
countries, including an analysis of trends over the last decade→ Analyses government income support policies provided to households with children
and identifies promising examples that may help inform efforts to reduce child poverty
This report begins with a league table that ranks countries based on recent levels of childincome poverty and progress in reducing it.
It makes use of the best available comparable data, based on six criteria – quality,
relevance, coverage, recency, comparability and variability – established in previous
Report Cards. Box 1 provides a brief overview of child poverty measurement in generaland of the different types of measures used in the report.

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Box 1
Measuring poverty
Approaches to measuring poverty can be divided into monetary and non-monetary, as reflected in the first
two targets of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1 – to eradicate extreme poverty (Target 1.1) and to halve
poverty in all its dimensions (Target 1.2).

Monetary poverty
The first SDG indicator relates to extreme monetary poverty (less than $2.15 per person per day)5. This type ofpoverty is rare in wealthy countries. We use an alternative measure of relative income poverty, often used in thesecountries.

Non-monetary poverty (material deprivation)
A second approach focuses on lack of access to items or services that are deemed necessary within a given
context. This approach is often called ‘multidimensional’ poverty. People are defined as poor if they lack access to
one or more of a list of items and services.

Non-monetary poverty (subjective)
A third approach – becoming more common – is to seek people’s subjective experience of poverty. For
example, people can be asked how they are managing financially – whether they are ‘managing well’, ‘justabout coping’ or ‘struggling to make ends meet’.
The report presents evidence, in relation to children, using all three approaches, although data are most readily
available for monetary poverty.

Headline measure: Relative income poverty
Based on the best available data, the headline measure in this report is relative income poverty – that is, theproportion of people who fall below a threshold relative to the income of the average person in the population.
In this case, the threshold used is an ‘equivalised’ income below 60 per cent of the median. Equivalised
incomes take account of variations in household size, as there are savings from living in larger households.
In this report, this measure is referred to as ‘child income poverty’ or simply as ‘child poverty’. Other
organizations sometimes use different terms. For example, the EU refers to it as ‘at risk of poverty’.
Like all measures, relative income poverty has strengths and weaknesses. Because it refers to the incomeof the average person (the median income), it is closely related to income inequality in a country. And as
the income of the person rises (or falls), the poverty threshold will change. It may therefore seem that it is
impossible to reduce or eliminate relative income poverty. But this is not true. First, as we will show, countries
with similar wealth have hugely different poverty rates based on this measure. Second, because it refers toa median – that is, the income of the middle person when everyone is ranked on their income – it is possible
to eliminate relative income poverty. Ensuring that every person in the country had an income of at least
60 per cent of that of the median person would not directly change the median. While no country in this reportachieves a relative child income poverty rate much lower than about 10 per cent, if one uses a threshold of
50 per cent of the median, some countries have, in the past, achieved rates below 3 per cent.6

7

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League Table.
UNICEF Innocenti ranking of child poverty in OECD and
EU countries
A league table created for Report Card 18 that ranks countries based on their most recent
income poverty rate and their success in reducing child poverty in a period of prosperity.
The overall rank is based on a statistical average of these two indicators.

UNICEF Innocenti Rank

Most recent rateof child poverty(Average 2019–2021)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39

%
10.0
14.1
16.3
15.7
14.8
18.3
11.6
14.8
14.8
16.6
17.2
14.9
19.3
10.1
9.9
19.8
13.5
22.3
21.1
12.0
18.9
18.0
12.4
15.6
15.5
17.1
21.6
29.0
19.2
18.0
26.1
26.2
19.9
25.5
24.5
28.0
20.7
33.8
35.8

8

Slovenia
PolandLatviaRepublic of Korea
Estonia
Lithuania
CzechiaJapan
Ireland
Croatia
CanadaBelgium
Portugal
FinlandDenmark
Malta
Netherlands (Kingdom of the)GreeceNew Zealand
NorwaySlovakia
SwedenIceland
CyprusGermany
Australia
Chile
Romania
Austria
Switzerland
Bulgaria
United States
France
Italy
Luxembourg
Spain
United Kingdom
TürkiyeColombia

Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Rank
2
8
16
15
9
22
4
11
10
17
19
12
25
3
1
26
7
31
29
5
23
20
6
14
13
18
30
37
24
21
34
35
27
33
32
36
28
38
39

Change in childpoverty rate
(2012–2014 to 2019–2021)
%
-31.4
-37.6
-31.0
-29.0
-23.4
-30.6
-14.5
-18.7
-18.5
-21.8
-22.7
-17.0
-22.5
0
+3.5
-18.2
+0.7
-17.2
-11.7
+10.1
-4.9
-2.4
+11.0
+4.0
+5.0
+1.7
-7.7
-22.5
+5.3
+10.3
-8.3
-6.7
+10.4
-0.8
+3.7
-4.0
+19.6
+1.5
-2.1

Rank
2
1
3
5
6
4
16
11
12
10
7
15
9
26
30
13
27
14
17
35
21
23
38
32
33
29
19
8
34
36
18
20
37
25
31
22
39
28
24

Sources:
See Technical Appendix
for full details
Note:
UNICEF Innocenti rank
is based on the averagez-score for the indicators
in columns 3 and 5. Dueto lack of availability of
data, it was not possible
to include four countries
in the league table –Costa Rica, Hungary,
Israel and Mexico. These
countries are included inother parts of the report
where data are available.

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The above league table summarizes the current status of, and progress made in reducing,child income poverty in 39 countries in the OECD and EU.7
The table is based on two indicators:
1. The most recent available rates of child income poverty (2019–2021)
2. The proportional change in child income poverty over a seven-year period (2012–2014

and 2019–2021)
Box 2 explains the reasons for the selection of these time periods.
The overall rank in the league table is based on a statistical averagerank of these two indicators.8 It therefore acknowledges both themost recent situation and progress in reducing child poverty.
→ The three countries at the top of the rankings – Slovenia,
Poland and Latvia – combine relatively low child poverty rates
with strong records in reducing child poverty.
→ All other countries in the top third of the league table rank highon one of the two dimensions and in the mid-range on the other.
→ The middle of the table includes three countries – Greece, Malta
and New Zealand – that have made recent progress in childpoverty reduction, although they still have relatively high rates.
→ In contrast, it also contains Denmark, Iceland, the Kingdom of
the Netherlands and Norway, which still have relatively low childpoverty rates but have increasing child poverty rates.
→ In the bottom third of the table, France, Luxembourg, Türkiye
and the United Kingdom have high rates of child poverty and arealso ranked low in terms of child poverty trends. As will be seen
later, France and the United Kingdom are among the countries
where child income poverty rates have increased substantially inrecent years.

Box 2
Due to recent fluctuations in rates,
which may be due to difficulties indata collection during the COVID-19
pandemic and changes in survey
administration, the average income
poverty rate over three recent years(2019–2021) is used. Therefore, forcomparability, the three-year period(2012–2014) is used as a base forcalculating change. The change iscalculated as a ratio to reflect the fact
that, when the child poverty rate isalready low, it may be more difficult
to achieve large reductions. Thus, areduction from 10 per cent to 9 percent is treated as equal to a reduction
from 20 per cent to 18 per cent.
Using the percentage-point reduction
would unjustly favour the latter overthe former.

The remainder of this report fills in the detail of this broad sketch,
considering the reasons for these patterns and solutions that can be
employed to tackle child poverty.

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Part 1
The current pictureThis part of the report presents the most up-to-date comparative statistics available on
child poverty in OECD and EU countries. It begins with monetary poverty, based onrelative household income and then expands its scope to consider various aspects ofnon-monetary poverty, including material deprivations and subjective poverty.

Monetary poverty
Figure 1 shows the first key indicator from the league table – the most recent available
child income poverty rates. These range from around 1 in 10 children in Denmark, Finlandand Slovenia to over 1 in 4 children in eight countries – Bulgaria, Colombia, Italy, Mexico,
Romania, Spain, the United States of America and Türkiye.

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Figure 1.
Child poverty rates, 2019–2021
Sources:
See Technical Appendix

Denmark

9.9

Slovenia

10.0

Finland10.1

Czechia

11.6

Norway12.0

Iceland

12.4

Netherlands(Kingdom of the)13.5

Poland

14.1

Estonia

14.8

Ireland

14.8

Japan

14.8

Belgium

14.9

Germany

15.5

Cyprus15.6

Republic of Korea

15.7

Latvia16.3

Croatia

16.6

Australia

17.1

Canada17.2

Sweden18.0

Switzerland

18.1

Lithuania

18.3

Slovakia

18.9

Austria

19.2

Portugal

19.3

Malta

19.8

France19.9

United Kingdom

20.7

New Zealand

21.1

Chile

21.6
22.3

Greece24.5

Luxembourg

25.5

Italy
Bulgaria

26.1

United States

26.2

Mexico

27.3

Spain

28.0
29.0

Romania

33.8

Türkiye

35.8

Colombia

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Children in relative income poverty (%)

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It might be thought that richer countries would be more successful in tackling childpoverty. However, Figure 2 shows that there is only a weak tendency for richer countries
to have lower child poverty rates.9 This can be seen by comparing pairs of countries, forexample:→ Spain (ES) and Slovenia (SI) have similar levels of per capita national income – below
the average among this group of countries – but Slovenia has a far lower child poverty
rate (10 per cent) than Spain (28 per cent).
→ Similarly, the United States (US) has a very similar national income per person to
Denmark’s (DK) but an average child poverty rate between 2019 and 2021 that ismore than double that of Denmark’s (although the United States did show some
improvement in 2021).
→ Switzerland (CH) has a national income per person four times that of Czechia (CZ) but
a child poverty rate over 6 percentage points higher.
Thus high national income is no guarantee of success in tackling child poverty, and richer
countries within the Report Card have much to learn from poorer ones.

Figure 2.
National income and child poverty, 2019 – 2021

35

Sources:
See Technical Appendix

CO

30

RO
ES

MX
BG
Child poverty (%) (2019–2021)

US

IT

25

LU
GR

CL
20

NZ GB
SK
LT

HR
15

PL

FR

PT MT

AT
SE

CA

LV

CY

EE

KR

JP

CH

AU

DE
BE
NL

IE
NO

CZ
FI

SI

10

DK

5

0

10,00020,00030,00040,00050,00060,00070,00080,000Gross national income per capita (constant 2015 US$, average for 2019–2021)

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Persistent child poverty
Poverty at any time during childhood can be a damaging experience, but prolonged
periods or repeated episodes of poverty can have an even greater corrosive effect. A
study in the United Kingdom used data gathered at six points in children’s lives,10 from
9 months to 14 years of age (from 2000 to 2014). It examined several indicators of wellbeing – word recognition (a test of cognitive ability), self-assessed health, emotional andbehavioural difficulties (EBDs), depression, and subjective well-being. Children who had
experienced persistent income poverty (five or six time points) fared much worse at 14
years old than children who had only experienced poverty once (Figure 3). Most strikingly,
children who had experienced persistent poverty were more than twice as likely to have
EBDs as children who had only experienced poverty at one time point. Children who had
experienced intermittent poverty (two to four time points out of six) also did less well thanchildren with little or no history of poverty.

Figure 3.
Histories of poverty and child well-being at 14 years old
Sources:
See Technical Appendix
Note:
EBDs, emotional andbehavioural difficulties;
SWB, subjective well-being

30

24Children with low score (%)

25

19.8

19.2

20
16.5

15.4

15.3

14.7

15

18.8

17.7

15.4 15.4

15
13.3

13.2
11.6

10.5

9.8

10

9.1

8.6
5.3

5

0
Low word recognition
No poverty (49%)

13Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Poor/fair healthOne-off (13%)

EBDsIntermittent (21%)

Depression

Low SWB

Persistent (17%)

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Statistics are available on persistent child income poverty for many European countries.
Figure 4 shows average statistics for 2017-19 (to avoid data fluctuations during the
COVID-19 pandemic) for 26 countries.11 The bar shows the rate of persistent child poverty,
and the orange dots show the overall child poverty rate in the same time period.
11

There is enormous variation here:→ In Slovenia and Denmark, less than 5 per cent of children experienced poverty overthe long-term. In Romania, the prevalence of persistent poverty was 25 per cent – afive-fold difference.
→ Sweden and Malta had similar overall child poverty rates (19.4 and 20.2 per cent), but
persistent poverty in Malta was more than two and a half times more common than in
Sweden.
→ Latvia (15.7 per cent) had a higher overall child poverty rate than Ireland (14.5 per cent),
but its rate of persistent poverty was approximately a third lower.
As seen from the United Kingdom example above, engrained experiences of poverty
throughout childhood can be associated with particularly negative outcomes for children,
exacerbating the disadvantages that poverty already creates. The degree of persistenceof child poverty is therefore another important aspect to consider in evaluating a country’s
performance on child poverty.

Figure 4.
Persistent child poverty in European countries
Sources:
See Technical Appendix

35

25
20
15
10
5

14

Child Poverty in the Midst of WealthSlovenia

Denmark

Czechia

SwedenLatviaFinland

PolandNetherlands(Kingdom of the)CyprusGermany

Austria

Ireland% of children

Estonia

Potugal

Switzerland

FranceBelgium

Croatia

Luxembourg

Malta

GreeceItaly

Lithuania

Spain

Türkiye

Persistent poverty
Total poverty

Bulgaria

0

Romania

Persistent child poverty (%)

30

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Non-monetary poverty (deprivations)
Another way of measuring child poverty is through identifying basic things that children
lack (deprivations). For this report the intention was to follow a recent rights-based
definition of material deprivation outlined by UNICEF.12 This includes rights to:
1. Nutrition

6. Education

2. Water

7. Health

3. Sanitation

8. Information

4. Clothing

9. Play

5. Housing

Unfortunately, it was not possible to find satisfactory indicators to adopt this approach.
This highlights a very substantial gap in international comparative data which hampers
shared learning across countries.
A more limited source of data on material deprivation is gathered within the EU, consistingof: (1) measures of material deprivation within households, where it is also possible toidentify numbers of children affected; and (2) a child-specific material deprivation measure.
Some key statistics from these indicators are shown in Table 1.
The household ‘severe material and social deprivation’ measure consists of 13 items (e.g.,
the ability to keep one’s home adequately warm, having an internet connection or being
able to replace worn-out clothes with new ones).13 Households are defined as in ‘severe’material deprivation if they cannot afford at least 7 of these 13 items.
→ Column 2 shows the rate of severe material and social deprivation for children in 2022,
which ranges from less than 2 per cent in Finland to over 30 per cent in Romania andaffects 1 in 12 children (8.4 per cent) – 6.6 million – across the EU as a whole.
→ Column 3 shows, within this overall picture, the proportion of children living inpoor-quality housing.14
The child-specific measure (for children under 16 years of age) consists of a list of 17 items– 12 child-specific (e.g., fresh fruit and vegetables daily) and 5 household-specific (e.g., theability to pay bills and avoid arrears).15 If any child in the household lacks an item, then all
children in that household are categorized as deprived for that item.
→ Column 4 shows the proportion of children who are deprived on 3 or more of the 17
items. The range is from under 3 per cent in Slovenia to over 42 per cent in Romania.
Across the EU as a whole, around one in seven children are deprived on three or more
items.
→ Column 5 shows the mean number of items (out of 17) lacked. This is above three
items in all countries and as high as eight items in some. On average, across the EU,
children under 16 years lack almost 5.9 out of 17 items.

15

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While these statistics do not cover all Report Card countries, they illustrate that many
children, even in these relatively wealthy countries, live in situations in which their basic
needs are not being fully met.

Table 1.
Selected indicators of material deprivation for children in theEU, 2020–2022

Year
Austria

Severe materialand social
deprivation

Housingproblems

Child material
deprivation

Child material
deprivation

%

%

%

mean

2022

2020

2021

2021

2.2

10.4

7.5

4.5

Belgium

7.7

18.3

12.8

5.5

Bulgaria

19.2

12.9

36.5

8.4

Croatia

3.5

8.1

5.8

5.7

Cyprus

4.4

36.7

23.4

4.8

Czechia

3.2

7.8

6.9

5.4

Denmark

2.8

20.4

4.8

5.7

Estonia

2.6

8.2

3.8

4.3

Finland

1.7

5.9

3.7

3.7

France

10.3

21.3

12.7

4.6

Germany

8.4

15.3

6.0

4.3

Greece

15.5

12.4

33.9

5.2

Hungary

12.0

24.9

24.7

7.4

Ireland

7.4

18.0

12.7

5.2

Italy

4.7

18.1

13.5

5.9

Latvia

5.9

18.3

9.4

5.5

Lithuania

5.2

9.8

9.6

5.4

Luxembourg

3.1

19.7

8.1

5.2

Malta
6.5
Netherlands
2.4(Kingdom of the)Poland
2.3

4.7

10.1

5.8

16.4

5.4

4.9

6.1

4.8

5.2

Portugal

4.9

25.5

14.0

4.4

Romania

30.8

12.6

42.5

8.7

Slovakia

10.8

4.4

13.1

7.6

Slovenia

1.8

19.2

2.9

4.7

Spain

10.3

21.3

19.7

5.5

Sweden

3.0

8.9

3.5

4.7

EU 27

8.4

16.2

13.0

5.9

16

Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Sources:
See Technical Appendix
for full details

Innocenti Report Card 18

The EU data also enable a comparison of estimates based on monetary and non-monetary
poverty. Figure 5 charts relative income poverty and child-specific material deprivation in
2021.16 There is a moderate-to-strong association,17 but:
→ Bulgaria (BG), Cyprus (CY), Greece (GR) and Romania (RO) have much higher levels ofdeprivation than might be expected from their rates of income poverty.
→ On the other hand, rates of deprivation in Italy (IT) and Luxembourg (LU) are closer
to the EU average than would be expected from their income poverty rates.
This comparison shows that measuring income and non-monetary poverty can lead todifferent conclusions.

Figure 5.
Relative income poverty and child-specific material
deprivation, EU, 2021
Sources:
See Technical Appendix
Note:
The data in this figure
relate to children under
16 years old.

45
RO
40
BG

Child m aterial deprivation (%)

35

GR

30

25
CY

20

ES

15

PT
BE IE

10

LV

DK

5

0

FI
SI
5

NL
EE

10

LT

MT
AT

CZ

DE
PL

15

IT

SK
FR
LU

HR
SE

20

25

30

35

Relative incom e poverty (%)

17Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

Children’s subjective experiences of poverty
In recent years, surveys of adults about poverty have started to ask about subjective
perceptions of poverty, such as how well they feel they are coping financially or whether
they would define themselves as poor. In comparison, there are very few international
comparative studies on children’s subjective experiences of poverty. This is part of a muchbroader tendency not to engage children or enable them to contribute their views to
debates on poverty. We return to this issue in the concluding section of the report.
One key exception is the Children’s Worlds study (2016–2019),18 which included aquestion about whether children worried about how much money their family had. The
proportion of children frequently worrying about family money (Figure 6) ranged fromaround 8 per cent in Norway to 38 per cent in Chile. A notable feature of this chart isthat, in many countries, children around the age of 8 years were substantially moreworried than children around the ages of 10 and 12 years.

Figure 6.
Proportion of children often/always worrying about familymoney, by age group
Sources:
See Technical Appendix

NorwayFinlandRepublic of Korea
France (cities)
Hungary
Switzerland
Croatia
Germany
UK (Wales)
Romania
Belgium (Flemish)
UK (England)
Malta
IsraelPolandGreece (Epirus)
Estonia
Spain (Catalonia)

Age group

Italy (Liguria)
Chile (cities)
0

20

40

60

80

100

12 years old
10 years old
8 years old

Always/often worrying about family money (%)

18Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

Inequalities in child poverty
While child poverty is both a product and a manifestation of deep-seated economic
inequalities within societies, it is also well established that children from certain groups
and living in certain contexts are much more likely to experience poverty than others. Suchvariations in child poverty risks within countries are invisible in cross-national comparisonsof averages.
Within Report Card countries there is ample evidence of the high levels of poverty
experienced by children in specific minority groups, including children affected bymigration, children with disabilities and children who come from racial or ethnic minorities.

Households with a migration background
Within the EU there are large and persistent differences in child income poverty rates forchildren with parents having citizenship within and outside the country where they live
(Figure 7). A child with a parent with citizenship outside the country was 2.4 times as
likely to be living in relative income poverty as a child with parent(s) who are citizens of
the country. The gap between poverty in the two groups has increased from around 19
percentage points in 2012 to around 22 percentage points in 2021.

Figure 7.
Child poverty rates by citizenship of parent(s), EU
45
Child income poverty (%)

40

37.3

39.7

40.1

38.7

41.3

39.3
35.8

35

Sources:
See Technical Appendix

37.3

38.3

37.2

15.8

16.0

15.6

30
25
20
15

18.7

19.0

19.0

19.0

17.2

16.8

15.9

10

Citizenship of parent(s)50Reporting countries
Other countries

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

Roma children
A review of living conditions of Roma children in Europe highlighted two recent studies
that demonstrate the high risk of child poverty among this group.19 The second European
Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey (MIDIS II) found that 80 per cent of Romachildren in eight European countries were living below the income poverty threshold in
2016. More recently, the European Agency for Fundamental Rights reported that morethan one in two (54 per cent) of Roma and Traveller children surveyed in 2021 lived insevere material deprivation, compared with the EU average of around 7 per cent in 2020.
19

19

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Innocenti Report Card 18

Indigenous children
Statistics Canada, Canada’s national statistics agency, provides a breakdown of childpoverty for children in First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities compared with poverty
for non-indigenous children (Figure 8).

Figure 8.
Child poverty in First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities
and among non-indigenous children, Canada, 202040

Sources:
See Technical Appendix

37.4

35

Child poverty (%)

30

24

25

19.4

20

15.2

15

10.8

10
5
0

First Nations
on reserve

First Nations
off reserve

Inuit

Métis

Non-indigenous

Similarly, an annual government monitor on child poverty in New Zealand highlights thematerial hardship of Maori and Pacific children (around 20 and 24 per cent, respectively)
compared with children of European descent (around 8 per cent).20

Race and ethnicity21
Where data exist, there are also marked differences in child poverty rates according torace and ethnicity. For example:→ In the United States, child poverty rates (based on a national threshold) in 2022 fordifferent groups were as follows: Black or African American (30 per cent), American
Indian (29 per cent), Hispanic or Latino (22 per cent), two or more races (18 per cent),
Asian and Pacific Islander (11 per cent) and Non-Hispanic White (10 per cent).22→ In the United Kingdom, child income poverty rates among many minority ethnic
groups (Bangladeshi, Black, Chinese, Mixed, Pakistani and other) are more than twice
as high as for children defined as White British.23

Children with disabilities
A report by the New Zealand government highlights the high poverty risks for children
with disabilities, who had more than double the likelihood of living in material hardship as
children without disabilities (Figure 9).

20Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

Figure 9.
Child poverty by disability status, New Zealand, 2022
Sources:
See Technical Appendix

35
30

29

Children (%)

25
19.6

20

21.5

15
10

8.9

5

0

8.4
3.2
Children with disabilities
Children without disabilities

Income below 60% medianMaterial hardship

Severe material hardship

Geographical inequalities
Inequalities between types of geographical areas also persist. For example, despite
progress in some countries, there are still substantially higher rates of poverty in ruralthan in urban areas in many European countries.24 The nature of rural–urban differences
varies across countries according to geographical and social context. For example, in the
United States, children in non-metropolitan areas are 1.3 times more likely to be living inpoverty than children in metropolitan areas.25 On the other hand, there can also be strong
concentrations of child poverty in urban areas. For example, in the United Kingdom, thefour local areas with the highest child poverty rates (after taking account of variations inhousing costs) are in all in urban areas.26
Apart from differences between areas based on population density, many countries arecharacterized by marked regional differences in poverty and child poverty rates, meaningthat where a child is born makes a huge difference to their risk of growing up in a poor
household. For example, in Italy, there are long-standing disparities in wealth between
the north, the centre and the south. This means that, in 2021, the highest regional childpoverty rate in Campania in the south (39 per cent) was four times as high as the lowest
rate in Trentino-Alto Adige in the north (9 per cent).27

Household type
There are also variations in poverty rates among different household types. Figure 10
shows rates of income poverty for children living in households with one and more than
one adult in OECD countries in 2018 or (the most recent year for which data are available).
On average, across these countries, a child living in a one-adult household is more than
three times as likely to live in poverty as a child living with two or more adults. In ninecountries – Belgium, Canada, Czechia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway andSlovenia – children living in a one-adult household were more than five times as likely tobe living in poverty as other children. Six of those nine countries are in the top third of our21Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

league table, demonstrating that relatively good average performance on child poverty
may hide stark differences within countries.
These types of disparities represent a challenge to policymakers in all countries. Evenin the countries at the top of this report’s league table, there are many children who, byaccident of birth or circumstances, find themselves at much higher than average risk ofpoverty.

Figure 10.
Relative income poverty for children living in households with
one or two parents, OECD countries, 2018 or most recent data
Sources:
See Technical Appendix
Note:
The relative income
poverty rate in this chart
is based on a thresholdof 50 per cent of medianincomeCosta Rica
Romania
TürkiyeIsrael
Chile
Spain
Italy
MexicoBulgaria
United States
GreeceLuxembourg
Japan
Republic of Korea
Slovakia
United Kingdom
Portugal
Lithuania
Australia
CanadaHungary
LatviaEstonia
Austria
New ZealandGermany
PolandNetherlands(Kingdom of the)FranceSwedenBelgium
Ireland
NorwaySlovenia
Czechia
Denmark
IcelandSingle adult
Two or more adults

Finland022

10Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

20

30
40
Child income poverty rate (%)

50

60

Innocenti Report Card 18

Part 2
Trends in child poverty
In 2014, Innocenti Report Card 12 presented an analysis of the effect of the 2008–2010global recession on child poverty up until 2012. In many countries, the negative impact
was substantial. In this section we pick up where that report finished and look at trends inchild poverty from 2012 onwards.
The countries covered in this report generally experienced a period of stable economic
growth in the years following the recession. The wealth of OECD nations was substantiallyhigher by 2019 than before the global recession (Figure 11) and this was reflected in higher
household incomes and improved living standards.28

23

Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

Figure 11.
Mean GDP per capita in OECD countries, 2008–2021
Sources:
See Technical Appendix
Note:
PPP, purchasing power
parityGDP per capita PPP(constant 2017 international $)48,00046,00044,00042,00040,00038,00036,00034,000

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015
Year

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

These favourable economic conditions ended in 2020. A chain of events (including the
COVID-19 pandemic, disruptions in global supply chains and the war in Ukraine) sent shockwaves around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic had many negative consequences forchildren. While they faced lower direct health risks than older age groups, the actions thatgovernments took to slow the spread of the virus affected their access to vital services.
For example, for the first time in almost 20 years, measles vaccination rates globally
decreased in 2020 due to reduced access to health care.29 Hundreds of millions of children
were affected by school closures, resulting in substantial learning losses.30
29

As pandemic-related global restrictions were eased, suppliers were unable to meet theincrease in consumer demand, and prices began to rise. This trend continued throughout
2022 and into 2023, with soaring energy and food prices in OECD countries (Figure 12). In
one year, the cost of food and energy grew by 13 and 30 per cent, respectively. The costof-living crisis has been particularly devastating for low-income households because they
spend a large share of their incomes on these staples.

Figure 12.
Annual increase in consumer prices by category, OECDaverage, 2018–2022
Sources:
See Technical Appendix

Annual increase in the consumer price index ($)

35
30

29.7%

25
20
15

15.5%

13.2%

10
7.6%
5
0

2.1%
1.9%
2018

-5

2.1%
0.5%
2019

3.4%
1.7%
2020

3.0%

6.8%

3.5%
2021

2022

EnergyFood
Total minus food and energy
Total

-6.3%

-10

24

Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

A key theme of this report is the extent to which countries took the opportunities available
during the period of stable economic growth from 2012 to 2019 to tackle child poverty
before the more unstable current period, which began in 2020 and continues.

The period from 2012 to 2018
So, how did the countries mentioned in the Report Card fare during this period of stable
growth? It is important to note that including data from 2019 posed challenges due to theunprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, with data on household income for thatyear being collected in 2020 when the pandemic was at its height. This led to difficulties
in data collection and the reliability of results. To maintain accuracy, we discuss the pattern
between 2012 and 2018. We were able to analyse data for 32 of the 43 countries acrossthese years.
→ Of the 32 countries, 18 reduced their child income poverty rates in this six-year period,
the range of reduction was 1 per cent in Czechia to over 30 per cent in Latvia and Poland.
→ In two countries – Spain and Türkiye – the rate was the same in 2012 and 2018.
→ In 12 countries, child income poverty increased, ranging from 3 per cent in France
to more than 20 per cent in Norway (which subsequently reduced its rate) and theUnited Kingdom.
→ On average across these 32 countries, the child poverty rate fell modestly from
20.1 per cent to 18.5 per cent in six years.
Given the positive economic picture in many of these countries during this period, there isa sense of a lost opportunity to better support children and to regain ground lost during the
2008–2010 recession.

The period from 2019 to 2021
Assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent events is moredifficult. In preparing this report, it was anticipated that a key theme would be the impactof the COVID-19 pandemic on child poverty. However, the data do not provide a clear
picture. As noted above, there were problems with data collection during this period,
which make statistics less reliable than usual. In addition, a complete picture for all
countries is not yet available.
Complete data for each year from 2018 to 2021 have been gathered for 30 Report Cardcountries, mostly European. The average child poverty rate across these 30 countries in2018 was 18.2 per cent. The average rates for the subsequent years were 18.1 per cent(2019), 18.1 per cent (2020) and 17.6 per cent (2021).
This lack of evidence of substantial changes in relative income poverty during the last few
years should not be taken as an indication that children’s lives have not been affected byrecent crises. The limited effect of the pandemic on household income poverty is likely tohave been due to the strong measures taken by governments to support businesses andhouseholds. Children were, however, affected in many other ways by the pandemic – for25Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

example, missing out on key development milestones, schooling and essential healthcare – and these deprivations were experienced in hugely unequal ways, potentiallyexacerbating existing inequalities.

The overall trend from 2012 to 2021 in the EU
It has been possible to obtain a complete time series from 2012 to 2021 for the EU27
(Figure 13). For the income year of 2015 (data gathered in 2016) the average rate of childpoverty in the EU was 21.4 per cent. There was then a promising drop to 18.5 per centin 2018, but this was followed by a rebound to 19.2 per cent in 2019, prior to thepandemic. The rate then remained broadly stable at 19.5 and 19.3 per cent in 2020 and
2021, respectively. For individual countries, the rates appear to have fluctuated more
substantially. This may be due to a combination of shorter-term impacts of the pandemic
and/or ongoing challenges in data collection during this period. This overall picturesuggests a stagnation in efforts to reduce child income poverty in the EU.

Figure 13.
Child relative income poverty rates in the EU,
2012–2021
25

Child income poverty (%)

20.7

21.4

21.4

21.4

20

20.0

19.6

18.5

19.2

19.5

19.3

2019

2020

2021

15
10

Sources:
See Technical Appendix
Note:
As discussed earlier, theEU refers to this indicator
as the ‘at risk of poverty’rate. Also note that theyears in the chart referto the year to which theincome relates, not theyear of data collection.

5
0
2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

A summary of overall progress from 2012 to 2021
Figure 14 shows the second key indicator from the league table – the change in averagechild income poverty rates between 2012–2014 and 2019–2021.
→ Bars in green represent proportional reductions in child poverty rates of more than
10 per cent. Seventeen countries surpassed this threshold.
→ Among them, the four countries at the top of the chart – Poland, Slovenia, Latvia and
Lithuania – achieved reductions of more than 30 per cent.
→ Six other countries were able to reduce child poverty by more than 20 per cent.
→ Eighteen countries, with blue bars, had relatively stable child poverty rates between
plus or minus 10 per cent.

26Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

→ At the bottom of the chart, the five countries with orange bars saw increases inpoverty of more than 10 per cent, of which the highest rise was in the United Kingdom(20 per cent).
→ On average, 8 per cent fewer children were in poverty in 2019–2021 than in 2012–2014
across these 40 countries. This is equivalent to around 6 million children out of a total
child population of 291 million. There were still over 69 million children in poverty at theend of this period.

Figure 14.
Change in child income poverty rates,
2012–2014 to 2019–2021

Netherlands(Kingdom of the)TürkiyeAustralia
Denmark
Luxembourg
CyprusGermany
Austria
NorwaySwitzerland
FranceIcelandUnited Kingdom

-50

-40

-30

-20

-10

Sources:
See Technical Appendix

PolandSlovenia
LatviaLithuania
Republic of Korea
Estonia
CanadaRomania
Portugal
CroatiaJapan
Ireland
Malta
GreeceBelgium
Czechia
New Zealand
Bulgaria
MexicoChile
United States
Slovakia
Spain
SwedenColombia
Italy
Finland

0

10

20

30

Proportional change in child income poverty rate (%)

27

Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

A way of visualizing the diverse trends in child poverty over the past decade as a whole is
to look at countries with similar starting points but different trajectories. Three examples
are provided in Figure 15. In each case, countries that started off in much the same
position diverged strongly:

Figure 15.
Selected comparisons of trends in child income poverty rates
Sources:
See Technical Appendix→ In 2012–2014, Poland had a childpoverty rate only slightly lower
than Chile and Luxembourg, but by
2019–2021 the difference was 7 and10 percentage points, respectively.
Over 600,000 fewer children were inpoverty in Poland by the end of thisperiod compared to the start.

Child income poverty rate (%)

14Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

13.5
11.6

10

10.0

8

Netherlands(Kingdom of the)Czechia
Slovenia

6
4
2
2012–20142019-2021

25

20

15

20.7
18.0
17.3
16.8

17.1

United Kingdom
Australia
Belgium

14.9

10

5

0

2012–20142019-2021

30
25

Luxembourg
23.6
23.4
22.6

20
15

24.5
21.6

Chile
Poland

14.1

10
5
0

28

14.6
13.6
13.4

12

0

Child income poverty rate (%)→ The United Kingdom had a slightly
lower child poverty rate thanAustralia and Belgium in 2012–2014
but had a rate 3 and 6 percentage
points higher, respectively, in
2019–2021. The increase in the
United Kingdom means thataround half a million more children
were in poverty in 2019–2021 thanseven years earlier.

16Child income poverty rate (%)→ Slovenia had a slightly higher
child poverty rate than theKingdom of the Netherlands in
2012–2014, but by 2019–2021
Slovenia’s child poverty rate wasaround 4 percentage points lower
than that of the Kingdom of theNetherlands. Czechia also madegood progress from a similarstarting point.

2012–20142019-2021

Innocenti Report Card 18

Given this mixed picture of moving forwards and sliding backwards, a key question iswhether this is due to variable economic conditions across countries. This is explored by
the statistics presented in Figure 16.
Generally, there appears to be some relationship between starting points and child poverty
reduction. Many of the countries that achieved the largest drops in child poverty wereamong the countries with lower gross national income (GNI) per person in 2012–2014. Aswith other patterns in this report, there is nevertheless variation in this picture:→ Poland (PL) had roughly the same GNI per capita in 2012–2014 as Chile (CL), but by
2019–2021 had achieved a poverty reduction more than three times that achieved by
Chile.
→ Canada (CA) and the United Kingdom (GB) had almost identical GNI per capita in
2012–2014 but moved in opposite directions. In fact, in 2012–2014, the United
Kingdom had a lower average child poverty rate (17.3 per cent) than Canada(22.2 per cent). By 2019–2021 the situation had reversed: Canada’s rate was
17.2 per cent, while that of the United Kingdom was 20.7 per cent.
Thus, national income is only part of the picture that explains failure and success intackling child poverty.

29Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

Figure 16.
National income starting points and child poverty trends,
2012–2014 to 2019–2021
Sources:
See Technical Appendix

GNI per capita 2012–2014, (US$)
0

10,00020,00030,00040,00050,00060,00070,00080,00090,000

-50%

-40%
PL

Change in child poverty (%), 2012-14 to 2019-21

SI

LV
LT

-30%

RO
-20%

HR

KR
EE

CA

PT

GR

JP IE

MT

BE

CZ
-10%

NZ
BG MX CL
SK
CO

US
ES
IT

0%

FI

CY
10%

20%

SE
NL

DE AT

DK

AU

LU
NO CH

FR

GB

30%

Trends in non-monetary poverty
The material deprivation measures collected by the EU and discussed in Part 1 also
provide a means of tracking deprivation over time. Figure 17 shows the rates of children
living in households in severe material deprivation in 2015 (the first year for which thecurrent indicator is available) and 2021.
→ The average rate across the EU fell substantially, from 11.8 per cent in 2015 to
7.5 per cent in 2021.
→ This pattern was also reflected in every country except Sweden, which had a very low
starting rate of 1.2 per cent that increased to 1.7 per cent by 2021; and Spain, where
there was a slight increase from 10.5 per cent to 10.8 per cent.

30Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

→ The largest decreases were mostly in countries that had the highest levels ofdeprivation in 2015. The rate of deprivation in Bulgaria fell by 22 percentage points,from 42 per cent in 2015 to 20 per cent; while the rate in Hungary fell by 18
percentage points.
→ Nevertheless, there were also substantial proportional decreases in several countries
that already had rates of deprivation below the EU average in 2015 – Croatia, Cyprus,
Czechia, Malta, Poland and Slovenia.
→ Six countries – Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Portugal – reduced theirdeprivation rates from above the EU average in 2015 to below it in 2021.

Figure 17.
Children living in severe material and social deprivation,
EU, 2015 and 2021

Children in households insevere m aterial and social deprivation (%)

45

Sources:
See Technical Appendix

40
35
30
25
20
15
10

Bulgaria

Romania

GreeceHungary

Lithuania

Italy

LatviaIreland

Portugal

Slovakia

European Union
27 countries (from 2020)

Spain

Malta

CyprusPolandBelgium

FranceCroatia

Czechia

Germany

Slovenia

Austria

Luxembourg

Denmark

Estonia

Netherlands(Kingdom of the)Finland0

Sweden

5
2015
2021

Thus while there has been slow progress in reducing relative income poverty across the
EU as a whole, there are positive signs that children’s household living conditions are
improving substantially. It should be noted, however, that these gains were primarily madebetween 2015 and 2019, when the EU average fell from 11.8 per cent to 7.5 per cent.
Since that year, deprivation rates have fluctuated and progress has stalled.31
This concludes our analysis of trends in monetary and non-monetary child poverty in OECDand EU countries in recent years. The picture is mixed, with evidence of substantial reductions
in some countries and for some indicators, alongside missed opportunities in others. The full
implications of the current series of crises for child poverty are, as yet, unclear, and the picture
will only materialize in years to come. Some indications can be gained from predictive analysis,
and an example of that approach is illustrated in Box 3, which assess the likely impact of theongoing cost-of-living crisis on child poverty ‘in real terms’ in EU countries.
31

Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

Box 3: The erosion of living standards for households with children in
the EU due to the cost-of-living crisis
An analysis conducted by UNICEF Innocenti sought to understand how the cost-of-living crisis in the EU in late2022 might have affected the real economic experiences of households with children. It used existing data to
project how households’ standard of living might be reduced by rapidly increasing food and energy prices without
increases in income. This situation meant that many additional households with children could fall below theeffective poverty threshold in real terms, based on their spending power.
→ The analysis estimated that over 4 million additional children were at risk of experiencing poverty in real terms
due to the cost-of-living crisis (Figure 18).
→ The analysis also modelled the effect of government actions to reduce the burden on households throughlump sum payments. It also estimated that these actions may have effectively removed the poverty risk for
1.3 million children in the EU.

Figure 18.
The potential impact of the cost-of-living crisis in the EU
up to December 2022
Sources:
See Technical Appendix

25.0

Children at risk of experiencing
poverty (millions)

19.4
20.0

16.9

17.7

18.1

15.2
15.0

10.0

5.0

0.0
Baseline

32

Effect due tofood inflation

Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Effect due toEffect due to Mitigating effectenergy inflation food and energy
due to the
inflation
subsidies

Innocenti Report Card 18

Part 3Social protection for children
Over a decade and a half ago, the global recession of 2008–2010 showed how
devastating the impact of global shocks can be for children. In the years ofstability that followed, and as the previous section highlighted, many Report
Card countries missed the opportunity to reduce child poverty. This is both amoral concern and a threat to the well-being of societies.32 Some countries
nevertheless managed to contain or even decrease the level of poverty,
including in the difficult years since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For meaningful and lasting improvements in children’s rights and well-being,
governments must invest and change policies across different sectors ( forexample, education, health and labour markets). ‘Social protection’ (see Box
4 for definition) is a unique tool in governments’ toolkits because it allows forthe direct alleviation of poverty by supplementing household incomes. Not only
does this have an immediate impact on households’ ability to meet their needs,
this type of policy can also have long-term positive impacts of social protection
for children’s health, nutrition and development.

33

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Both the global recession in 2008–2010 and the COVID-19 pandemic
have demonstrated the critical role of social protection systems
in safeguarding children’s well-being during times of crises. A key
lesson learned was that countries can cushion themselves against
future economic shocks if they invest in comprehensive social
protection systems.33 For example, in countries with higher precrisis social protection spending, children were less likely to fall intopoverty during the global recession.34 In many European nations,permanent social protection mechanisms kicked in to off set someof the increases in child poverty associated with the financial crisis.35
The importance of social protection is not limited to times of crisis.
Social protection is particularly important for children because they
are more vulnerable to poverty and its consequences than adults.
The levels of poverty in a country, be it during times of stabilityor crisis, are highly dependent on the effectiveness of the social
protection system. This section will demonstrate that developmentsin child poverty up to and during the recent crises did not merely
depend on countries’ financial resources, but also on the ways they
invested in social protection systems for children. When discussing
the efforts countries make to directly alleviate children’s income
poverty, cash benefits deserve particular attention due to their
immediate effect on household resources – which will therefore
be the focus of this section. Nevertheless, in-kind social transfers(for example, school meals) and social services remain essential
safeguards to children’s well-being and are integral parts of Report
Card countries’ social protection systems.

Box 4
What issocial protection?
Different organizations have different
definitions of social protection. UNICEF
defines social protection as the setof public and private policies andprogrammes aimed at preventing,
reducing and eliminating economic andsocial vulnerabilities to poverty anddeprivation. The countries included in
the Report Card represent a varietyof traditions and trajectories when it
comes to social protection. Overall,however, they share a toolkit fromwhich their systems are assembled.
Broadly speaking, this toolkit includes
cash benefits transferring income tohouseholds (contributory, e.g., parental
leave, and non-contributory, e.g., childbenefits), labour market policies andsocial services. The analysis presented
in this report focuses on cash benefits
due to their immediate impact on
income poverty.

All 43 Report Card countries have systems that include regularincome transfers for households with children in the form of cash
benefits. Moreover, they all have a form of child or family benefit
anchored in national legislation.36 There is, however, large variation in
how eligibility for these programmes is determined.
First, it is important to distinguish between contributory and non-contributory programmes.
→ Eligibility for contributory programmes is earned by paying social security contributions
over a required amount of time. Contributory programmes are most commonly
financed through national systems of social security, but there are countries where
benefits are administered and paid by employers.
→ Non-contributory programmes, on the other hand, provide social transfers that are
generally financed from the government budget and do not require a history of
employment or social security contributions. Child or family benefits are a form of suchnon-contributory, periodic cash benefits.

34

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Second, programmes differ in how they are targeted. As summarized in Table 2 below,
27 out of the 43 countries provide universal or quasi-universal child benefits. Universal
child benefits cover all children regardless of age or household income.37 Quasi-universal
child benefits take a similar approach but with some restrictions, such as setting a lower
age limit (for example, the child allowance is provided until the child is 8 years old in the
Republic of Korea). Affluence-tested programmes are a form of quasi-universal benefits
that exclude children in the highest-earning households or taper off with rising income(such as child benefits in Slovenia). Means-tested programmes, on the other hand, aremore selective and limit benefits to households without sufficient income to meet theirbasic needs. In 16 countries, only means-tested programmes target children or theirhouseholds. There are, however, 17 Report Card countries that provide both a universal(or quasi-universal) benefit that covers all households with children and a means-tested
component to supplement the incomes of those in need.
37

Table 2.
Overview of child and family benefits in Report Cardcountries
Programme typeCountries

Universal, quasiuniversal, or affluencetested child/family
benefits (only)

Austria, Switzerland,
Germany, Denmark, Ireland,
Italy, Luxembourg, Latvia,
Norway, Slovakia

10

Means-tested child/family benefits (only)

Australia, Bulgaria, Canada,
Chile, Colombia, Costa
Rica, Cyprus, Czechia, Spain,
France, Greece, Croatia,
Mexico, Portugal, Slovenia,
Türkiye, United States

17

Both universal andmeans-tested

Belgium, Estonia, Finland,
Hungary, Iceland, Israel,
Japan, Republic ofKorea, Lithuania, Malta,
the Kingdom of theNetherlands, New Zealand,
Poland, Romania, Sweden,
United Kingdom

16

At least one non-contributory
child benefit

All

43

35

Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Number of countries

Source:See Technical Appendix
Note:
In a number of Report
Card countries, there are‘generic’ social assistanceprogrammes or minimum
income guarantees thatprovide protection forfamilies with children.

Innocenti Report Card 18

Comparing and contrasting the ways in which different countries utilize social protection iscomplex. In the remainder of this section we compare countries on three different aspects:
1. Their levels of expenditure (per capita) on social protection for children
2. The adequacy of the benefits paid to households with children
3. The effectiveness of these systems in terms of reducing poverty

Expenditure on social protection
Measuring expenditure on child and family benefits as the percentage of gross domestic
product (GDP) per capita spent on each child allows for a fair comparison among countries
with different sized economies and child populations. Figure 19 presents this informationfor 33 OECD and EU countries with available data, comparing average expenditure per
child in 2010 and 2019. More than half of the countries with available data dedicatedmore of their resources to children in 2019 than they did in 2010, albeit most of them only
made small strides. Particularly remarkable efforts were made in the Republic of Korea,
Poland, Türkiye, Greece and Japan. Per-child spending on family benefits grew by almost
170 per cent of GDP per capita in the Republic of Korea and 150 per cent in Poland – twocountries where child poverty also decreased drastically. While Türkiye nearly doubled its
expenditure, it was still among the three lowest spending countries in 2019, with only
2.9 per cent of GDP per capita allocated for each child.
Expenditure patterns in many countries, however, showed a disinvestment in family benefits
in the years prior to the pandemic. The United Kingdom and Hungary both reduced theirexpenditure on child and family benefits relative to the size of their economies and childpopulations. Social protection spending per child also decreased in Mexico, where levels
were already among the lowest in 2010.

Figure 19.
Expenditure on family cash benefits per child as a percentage
of GDP per capita (2010 and 2019)
Source:see Technical Appendix.
Note:
For country codes usedon the y axis, see Technical Appendix.

20%
GDP per capita, per child (%)

18%
16%
14%
12%
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%

36

Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Estonia

Luxembourg

PolandDenmark

SwedenFinland

NorwayIceland

Austria

Germany

Belgium

Hungary

Lithuania

LatviaFranceJapan

New ZealandCzechia

United Kingdom

GreeceSlovenia

Slovakia

Switzerland

Australia

Italy

CanadaSpain
Netherlands(Kingdom of the)Republic of Korea

Portugal

Chile

IrelandIsraelColombia

Türkiye

Costa Rica

Mexico2019
2010
United States

0%

Innocenti Report Card 18

In the decade since Report Card 12, several countries have introduced significant reforms
to their child and family benefits. Some of these changes explain the drastic shifts
in expenditure. The increase in spending on child benefits in Poland can be explainedby a major expansion of social protection for children (discussed in more detail in the
concluding section). In the Republic of Korea, an initially targeted Child Allowance wasintroduced in 2018 and expanded to cover all children under the age of 6 years in 2019,
and to children under the age of 8 years in 2022.38
Although the budget available for social protection is to a great extent a matter ofpolitical will, it is useful to assess governments’ expenditure patterns while considering
their budgetary circumstances. Figure 20 plots the changes in per-child family benefit
expenditure against changes in governments’ fiscal balance.39 There is no relationshipbetween the two variables, which implies that countries did not tend to adjust theirinvestments in social protection up or down based on how much money they had
available. Several countries that had more room for spending have also increased theamount of money they spend on child and family benefits (top right quadrant). However,many countries did not seize the opportunity for further investments presented byincreasing wealth (bottom right quadrant).

Figure 20.
Changes in fiscal balance and social protection expenditure
per child, 2012–2013 to 2018–2019200%

Less fiscal space, higer expenditure

More fiscal space, higher expenditure

KR

150%

Source:see Technical Appendix.
Note:
For country codes see
Technical Appendix.

PL

100%

Change in per child expenditure

TR

GR
JP

50%

CO
CL

NO
LV

-10%

-8%

-6%

-4%

-2%

AU
NZ

CA
EE CH
IT
IS DE
IL
BE
SE
FI FR

2%US

HU

SK

AT

MX

LT

NL

4%CZ

SI

6%PT

8% ES

DK

10%

GB

-50%

Less fiscal space, lower expenditure

More fiscal space, lower expenditure
-100%

-150%

-200%

Change in fiscal balance37Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

The adequacy of transfers
The adequacy of the level of benefits is a key determinant of the extent to which they cantackle poverty. Past research has examined the significance of transfer ‘size’, centring
predominantly around policies targeting households with children. For instance, several
studies40 conducted in Europe indicate that while universal programmes outperform meanstested designs in reducing poverty, transfer adequacy is of equal or greater importance.
40,41,42

The level of transfers provided in Report Card countries tends to differ depending on
household composition and economic circumstances. The following figures therefore use
two hypothetical ‘model families’ as illustrative case studies of benefit levels:41 an out-ofwork couple with two children and a couple with average earnings raising two children.
The two household permutations allow for the analysis of how social protection systems
support those with different resources and at different levels of economic vulnerability.
Using our two model families, Figure 21 shows transfer adequacy in 2022. It depicts
benefits specifically aimed at households with children and income support programmes
available to the general population (including social assistance and housing benefits).42
Countries in the OECD and EU subscribe to different models of providing for householdswith children: Some rely more heavily on child-specific transfers (e.g., Australia andIreland), while others prioritize social assistance programmes available to all without
adequate income (e.g., Spain). Housing benefits are marginal or not available for a lowincome family such as the one modelled here in some countries (e.g., Denmark) but arevery prominent in others (e.g., Norway).
Expressing the generosity of transfers as a percentage of the national average wage
allows a meaningful comparison across countries. Transfers for a family with no labour
market earnings are highest in Denmark, where they account for 89 per cent of theaverage wage. New Zealand and Cyprus provide transfers equivalent to approximately
70 per cent of the average wage. There are 19 countries where cash benefits complement
household income by more than 50 per cent of the national average wage. However,the level of transfers to such vulnerable families is often too low to make a meaningful
difference. In 19 countries, the combination of general (not child-specific) means-tested
programmes and family benefits provided is equivalent to less than a half of a worker’s
average earnings. It is lowest in Hungary (9.8 per cent), Türkiye (10.7 per cent), andBulgaria (17.5 per cent).
The right side of Figure 21 depicts transfer adequacy for an average earning couple withtwo children. These households typically do not qualify for means-tested forms of support
and are only covered by universal, quasi-universal or affluence-tested family benefits(with the exception of Czechia, where an average earning couple receives housing cash
benefits). Comparing the left and right sides of the figure, it can be concluded that themore vulnerable of our model families would receive a higher level of support in all
countries for which we have data.

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Figure 21.
Adequacy of social transfers in OECD/EU countries for two
family types
Out-of-work couple with 2 children

Average earner couple with 2 children
89.0%

DK
70.3%

NZ

16%

PL
13%

IT

CY

69.7%

CZ

10%

LU

68.2%

LU

10%

SI

68.0%

KR

10%

IE

62.7%

DE

JP

61.8%

AT

10%
9%

LT

61.2%

LT

9%

KR

58.9%

RO

8%

PL

55.9%

BE

7%

FI

55.4%

EE

7%

AT

55.1%

LV

MT

53.2%

SE

6%

GB

53.0%

DK

6%

IS

51.8%

IE

6%

AU

51.7%

CA

NO

51.5%

SI

5%

7%

6%

LV

51.3%

JP

5%

SE

50.1%

HU

5%

DE

49.8%

CH

5%

EE

48.4%

FI

5%

CZ

48.3%

SK

NL

47.6%

CY

4%

5%

CH

47.3%

GB

4%

IT

47.1%

MT

4%

FR

44.4%

FR

4%

BE

42.3%

NO

4%

ES

39.5%

NL

CA

37.4%

GR

GR

34.7%

IL

PT

33.5%

PT

4%
3%
2%
1%

IL

31.8%

IS

HR

31.2%

ES

0%

1%

SK

27.3%

US

0%

US

26.5%

AU

0%

RO

18.9%

BG

0%

BG

17.5%

NZ

0%

TR

10.7%

HR

0%

HU

9.8%

TR

0%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Source:See Technical Appendix
Note:
For country codes usedon the y axis, seeTechnical Appendix.

0%

Other social assistanceFamily benefits
Housing benefits

5%

10%

15%

20%

Average wage (%)

Not only overall expenditure, but also the adequacy of transfers has changed throughout thepast decade in Report Card countries. The absolute change (as a percentage of the national
average wage) in the total adequacy of non-contributory social protection is shown in
Figure 22, with blue bars depicting adequacy for the out-of-work model family and orange
bars showing the average earner couple with children. The generosity of social transfers
for a poor household has improved in 13, stagnated in 5 and worsened in 21 out of 39
countries with available data. This suggests that most Report Card countries have reduced
their efforts to support households with children that are among the most economicallyvulnerable. In Latvia, the adequacy of social protection decreased by 27 percentage points of

39

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the average wage, the starkest reduction, followed by Hungary (minus 16 percentage points)
and Bulgaria (minus 13 percentage points).43 These reductions have often been the resultof the failure to adjust benefit levels to socioeconomic standards, resulting in the gradualloss of their value over time (Box 5). Other countries made remarkable efforts. The mostpositive change was seen in Italy: The out-of-work model family would not have qualified forsupport in 2012, but it would have received both social assistance and family benefits equal
to almost half of the national average wage in 2022. Changes to policies and contexts havealso affected the adequacy of social transfers for middle-class, two-parent households – buton average, this effect was smaller.

Figure 22.
Absolute change in the adequacy of social transfers(family benefits and social assistance) for two ‘modelfamilies’, 2012–2022
Italy
GreeceRepublic of Korea
PolandSpain
United Kingdom
Estonia
New ZealandTürkiyeLithuania
Belgium
Malta

Source:Authors’ own calculations
based on OECDTax Benefit Model.
Note:
Family benefits do notinclude income tax
reductions. No data for
Mexico, Colombia, Costa
Rica and Chile.
The figure refers toabsolute (percentage
point) changes.

Slovenia
Portugal
Germany
Croatia
FranceNetherlands (Kingdom of the)SwedenAustralia
Austria
CanadaLuxembourg
Finland
NorwayCyprusUnited States
IrelandDenmark
Romania
Switzerland
Japan
Iceland
Slovakia
Czechia
IsraelBulgaria
Hungary
Latvia

-30

-20

-10

0

10

20

30

40

50

Out-of-work couple withtwo children
Average earning couple
with two children

Average wage (%)

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The effectiveness of social protection benefits in reducing
child poverty
The primary objective of social protection for children is to shield them from the immediateand long-term effects of income poverty. Whether programmes and systems can achievethese goals depends on a combination of factors: the amount of money countries spend
on them, the way resources are distributed, the extent to which resources reach children,and the pre-transfer patterns of poverty and inequality. The performance of social protection
across different countries can be assessed by comparing poverty after cash benefits to ahypothetical scenario without them. This information is available only for members of the
EU’s Eurostat data infrastructure and is presented in Figure 23.

Figure 23.
The child poverty reduction effect of cash benefits in 33
OECD and EU countries (2021)
Source:See Technical Appendix

40

30
25
20
15
10
5
Spain

TürkiyeRomania

Italy

Bulgaria

United Kingdom

GreeceLuxembourg

Slovakia

Malta

FranceAustria

Portugal

SwedenLithuania

LatviaSwitzerland

Croatia

IrelandRepublic ofKorea (the)CyprusPolandGermany

NorwayEstonia

Belgium

IcelandCzechia
Netherlands(Kingdom of the)Denmark

FinlandAfter transfers
Before transfers
Hungary0

Slovenia

Child relative income poverty (%)

35

Social protection has had remarkable effects on child poverty rates in countries withcomparable data, showcasing the importance of such programmes and policies inprotecting children’s rights and well-being. In 2021, the average income transfer system
reduced child poverty by 42.4 per cent.44 Figure 23 shows Report Card countries in orderof the level of child poverty. The difference between poverty with (dark blue bars) anda hypothetical scenario without cash benefits (light blue bars) is the reduction in childpoverty achieved by transfers.
46

In the absence of transfers, the United Kingdom would have the highest prevalence of childpoverty (40 per cent), followed by Türkiye (38.6 per cent) and France (38.2 per cent). In boththe United Kingdom and France, transfers achieve a nearly 17 percentage point reduction in
the income poverty rate of children. Transfers have the sharpest effect in Finland, where childpoverty would be three times as high in the absence of transfers (28.6 per cent rather than
9.5 per cent). Cash benefits at least halved the proportion of poor children in 10 out of the 33

41

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countries with available data. In four countries (Türkiye, Spain, Romania and Greece), social
protection remains marginal and reduces child poverty by less than a quarter.45
The effort (or lack thereof) that countries have made since the 2008-10 global recession
to strengthen their social protection systems is also reflected in the change of poverty
reduction effectiveness. In Figure 24, countries are ranked by the change in the poverty
reduction effectiveness of benefits between 2012 and 2021 (or the latest year with available
data).46 Echoing the patterns seen in previous indicators (i.e., changes in expenditure andadequacy), transfers’ estimated effect on child poverty has improved in approximately halfof the countries and decreased in others. The effect of benefits has increased by more than
10 per cent in 12 European countries and decreased by over 10 per cent in 9. The expansionof social protection in Greece and Poland is reflected in stark increases (155 per cent and88 per cent, respectively) in its effect on children’s income poverty. The largest drops in childpoverty reduction occurred in Malta (40.9 per cent), Spain (37.9 per cent) and Luxembourg(37.8 per cent).47

Figure 24.
Changes over time (2012–2021 or the latest available data) in
the child poverty reduction effect of social transfers in Europe
Source:See Technical Appendix

42

Malta

Spain

Luxembourg

United Kingdom

Portugal

NorwayAustria

Czechia

Italy

Denmark

IrelandRomania

Belgium

FranceFinland

LatviaSlovakia

HungaryChild Poverty in the Midst of WealthSlovenia

Lithuania

TürkiyeEstonia

PolandSwitzerland-45

Bulgaria

50Germany

Sweden55

CyprusNetherlands(Kingdom of the)Croatia

105

GreeceChange in poverty reduction (%)

155

Innocenti Report Card 18

Box 5
Why does the adequacy of transfers
decline over time?
Over time, increasing overall living standards and inflation erode the levelof protection that a given amount of cash benefit can provide. As the costof goods and services increases, the value of social protection transfers
decreases, resulting in a reduction in their purchasing power. This can lead toa decline in the standard of living of beneficiaries and potentially undermine
the effectiveness of social protection programmes in reducing poverty andinequality. There are many examples of the deterioration of transfer values in
the absence of adjustment mechanisms.
Therefore, it is important for policymakers to take inflation into accountwhen designing social protection programmes and when determining
annual budgets to ensure their effectiveness and sustainability over time.
The mechanism of adjusting transfer values with the goal of protecting its
purchasing power against rising prices is known as indexation.
Several countries index their child benefits from time to time. However,
the regular and automatic adjustment of transfer levels remains rare. A
best practice example of regular indexation is Belgium, a country thathas historically been proactive in ensuring that its citizens receive social
protection benefits in tune with the changing costs of living. To safeguard
the purchasing power of benefits, the Belgian government adjusts the levelof transfers (as well as public sector wages) based on the so-called ‘healthindex’, which is derived from the consumer price index. As soon as thesmoothed health index reaches a value specified by law, benefits and wages
are automatically adjusted to reflect the increase.48

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Lessons learned andrecommendations
Review of key points
Progress towards eradicating child poverty in some of the world’s richest nations has
been uneven since the global recession in 2008-10. Some nations have made remarkable
strides, while the situation of children in others has considerably worsened. Table 3
summarizes the progress made since 2012–2014 based on starting points and trends.
Notably, the countries that managed to reduce child poverty are neither the wealthiest
nor the countries that experienced the strongest economic growth in the last decade.
Conversely, the greatest leaps backwards occurred in some of the richest members of theOECD and the EU. It appears, therefore, that the fight against child poverty need not dependon external circumstances or the growth of the economy. If sufficient political will is present,
governments have a variety of policy tools to protect and promote the well-being of children.

44Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

Table 3.
Starting points and progress in tackling child poverty
Source:See Technical Appendix

Status in tackling child poverty (2012–2014 to 2019–2021)
Starting point(2012–2014)

Increasing(by more than
10 per cent)High(above 25 per cent)Stable(less than 10 per
cent change)

Decreasing(by more than
10 per cent)

Bulgaria, Colombia,
Italy, Mexico, Spain,
Türkiye, UnitedStatesGreece, Lithuania,
Romania

Medium(15 to 25 per cent)France, Switzerland, Australia, Austria,
United Kingdom
Chile, Cyprus,
Luxembourg,
Sweden, Slovakia

Belgium, Canada,
Croatia, Estonia, Ireland,
Japan, Latvia, Malta,
New Zealand, Poland,
Portugal, Republic of
Korea

Low
(below 15 per cent)Iceland, Norway

Czechia, Slovenia

Denmark, Finland,
Germany, theKingdom of theNetherlands

Part 3 of this report described one of those policy tools with great potential to preventor remedy child poverty: child and family benefits. All countries included in the Report
Card series have some form of income support in place specifically targeting families
with children, but the comprehensiveness and the level of protection provided by theirpolicies vary greatly. There was also variation in the efforts countries made to strengthen
their social protection systems since the 2008-10 global recession. Trends in social
protection investments have been reflected in the extent of child poverty reduction
achieved by countries.
While trends in the income poverty of children depend on a variety of factors and cannot
always be explained by shifts in social protection policy, there are a number of cases where
the link is clear. Slovenia and Poland, which occupy the top two positions in the league table,
have achieved remarkable improvements since Report Card 12 took stock of child poverty.
The key to Slovenia’s success has been in improving living standards, in part promoted
by labour market policies. In the decade since the financial crisis of 2008, theGovernment of Slovenia has implemented a series of policies to tackle in-work poverty
and promote decent work. These included the 2015 amendment of the Minimum Wage
Act,49 which stipulates the annual adjustment of the minimum wage determined by
the price of a basket of goods required for a decent minimum living standard. By 2018,
Slovenia’s minimum wage became the third highest in comparison to the country’s
median wage, only surpassed by France and Portugal.50 Between 2013 and 2021, inwork poverty dropped from 7.1 per cent to 4.8 per cent,51 accompanied by a 31 per centdecrease in child poverty.

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Poland’s social protection reforms have played an important part in the country’s progress.
In 2007, Poland had one of the highest child poverty rates in the EU (followed only by
Bulgaria, Spain, Italy and Romania), which the country managed to contain and even slightly
reduce during the global recession of 2008-10.52 More substantial improvements wererecorded from 2016 onwards, following the Government’s decision to increase expenditureon cash benefits for households with children. A new quasi-universal child benefit called
Family 500 Plus was rolled out in 2016, which, by the end of 2017, covered almost 4 million
children (58 per cent of all children in Poland).53 In 2019, the programme was turned into afully universal benefit covering all 7 million Polish children aged 0–17. In March 2022, theprogramme was extended to the 700,000 Ukrainian refugees hosted in Poland.
54

The Government of Canada has also undertaken ambitious reform of its social protection
policies for children, by introducing the Canada Child Benefit in 2016. This scheme replaced
a complicated system of income tax credits and provided generous monthly transfers tolow- and moderate-income households, covering an estimated 3.7 million households
in 2018.54 Transfer levels are highest for the lowest earning households and are sensitive
to the number of children and special needs (e.g., disabilities). Recent years have seen asurge of empirical evidence on the positive impacts of the Canada Child Benefit: It has lifted
approximately 250,000 children out of poverty and increased household expenditure on
childcare, school supplies, shelter, food and clothing.55 The Canada Child Benefit has also
reduced food insecurity in households with young children.56
58

As shown in Part 3 of this report, the effectiveness of the social protection system
of Greece has nearly tripled since 2012. Despite worsening overall living conditions,evidenced by a sharp drop in average wages, the country managed to reduce the share ofchildren living in poverty by 17 per cent.57 At the beginning of the past decade, Greece wasone of the few European countries without a social protection programme guaranteeing aminimum living standard to households with low or no income. In 2014, the Government
started the gradual roll-out of the Guaranteed Minimum Income programme, whichreached nationwide implementation by 2020. Although this means-tested programme
does not specifically target households with children, a recent UNICEF analysis has foundthat it reached nearly 160,000 children in 2021.58
60

A lesson on the power of social protection during crises emerges from the United States,
where the largest income support programme for households with children is a tax credit
scheme called the Child Tax Credit (CTC). The CTC is an important source of support but
has historically suffered from shortcomings: Due to its design, children in householdswith no or low earnings may be excluded from the programme or not qualify for the full
benefit. The United States Government decided to shield households with children fromincome losses triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic by temporarily adapting the design of
the CTC. Between June and December 2021, the CTC transformed into a monthly flat-rate
payment of US$3,000 or US$3,600 (depending on age) for each child. The transfer was
made ‘refundable’ – in practice, this meant a more equitable and effective distribution oftransfers because households with low or no earnings could benefit from the full amount.
The expansion of the CTC had an impressive, albeit temporary, effect on child poverty. In
2021, the monthly payments cut child poverty by 46 per cent and lifted 3.7 million children
out of poverty.59 During the extended CTC period, child poverty in the United States was at,62

46Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Innocenti Report Card 18

a record low.60 These effects, however, ceased as soon as the temporary expansion of the
CTC was discontinued. In January 2022, the drop in child poverty was reversed – in fact,
the share of children in poverty reached its highest level since 2020.61 Hence, much of the
progress on child poverty recorded in the United States was due to temporary measures.
A key lesson is that permanent and comprehensive social protection is necessary toprotect children during and after crises.

What can countries do to eradicate child poverty?
In 2015, the United Nations stated that “eradicating poverty in all its forms anddimensions. is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement forsustainable development”.62 It set ambitious targets under the Agenda for Sustainable
Development, one of which was to halve poverty, including child poverty, by 2030, towhich all governments, including those covered in this Report Card, have committed.
65

Within this context, the analysis in this report suggests that some progress has been
made in countries that are members of the OECD and/or the EU. There were over 6 million
fewer children in relative income poverty in this group of countries in 2019–2021 thanin 2012–2014. On the other hand, there were still around 69 million children in poverty
in 2019–2021, so reducing child poverty remains a huge challenge. In response to thischallenge, there is now ample evidence of effective strategies that governments canadopt. The following are four areas for action.63
1.

Expanding child-sensitive social protection
Social protection is essential for eradicating poverty – both in its monetary and nonmonetary forms. Through redistributing incomes, it is also a key element of reducing
inequality. The countries included in this Report Card have made commitments, forexample by ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to ensuring that all
children can benefit from social protection. The cases of several countries discussed
above provide practical examples of the power of a comprehensive social protection
system to contribute to the goal of eradicating child poverty and to protect children
during periods of shocks and crises.
For child benefits to make a real difference, they should provide adequate sums. It isalso vital that the level of benefits is adjusted over time, through regular adjustmentsthat reflect changes in the cost of living. This is of particular importance to low-income
households, who spend a large proportion of their income on basic needs and are
therefore vulnerable to price increases, as illustrated in Box 3.

2. Improving and ensuring access to essential services
Alongside financial support to households with children, the multidimensional natureof child poverty requires a second strand of policy to ensure that all children haveaccess to basic services, beyond the household, that are essential for their well-being
and development.

47

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As an example, the New Zealand Government has introduced a well-being budget,of which a central component is to tackle child poverty. As part of this initiative, theGovernment monitors nine key indicators; some are income poverty measures, whileothers measure housing, nutrition, education and health outcomes linked to childpoverty. Priorities in the 2023 budget in response to the rising cost of living are toextend childcare services, remove payments for medical prescriptions, provide freepublic transport for children under 13 years of age, and provide support to households(e.g., insulation) to lower energy bills.64
Another example of how this approach can be put into practice is the EU Child
Guarantee, which aims to ensure that all children ‘in need’ have access to: free earlychildhood education and care, free education (including school-based activities andat least one healthy meal each school day), free health care, healthy nutrition andadequate housing.65 This programme also highlights specific groups who may beparticularly at risk and therefore also aims to tackle many of the inequalities in poverty
risks highlighted earlier in this report.
3. Ensuring decent work and family-friendly policies
Decent work with adequate pay and conditions offers a vital and dependable sourceof income for households with children. The success of Slovenia, which tops theleague table, in reducing child poverty has been in part based on effective labour
market policies. As well as boosting opportunities for such employment, policymakers
should consider a comprehensive set of family-friendly policies that support parents
and other caregivers in managing the balance between paid employment and caring
responsibilities. Such policies should include adequate parental leave for all parents
and caregivers (paid maternity, paternity and parental leave, and leave to care for sickyoung children) before and after the birth of a child; access to good-quality, affordable
childcare; support for breastfeeding; and a range of flexible working options.66
Opportunities for parents wishing to enter or re-enter the labour market to gain accessto quality vocational training and further and higher education are also important
supports.
4. Acting to reduce the inequalities in poverty risks
Cutting across the above three areas, the evidence presented in Part 1 of this reporton the persistence of inequalities in poverty risks for children in many minority groups
requires ongoing attention and effective action. Over and above universal provisions,additional tailored measures need to be taken to ensure that all children, and theirhouseholds, have access to social protection, key services and decent work. Key tomaking action possible is adequate disaggregated data on the poverty risks for different
groups and learning from the evidence on policies and approaches that are mosteffective in reducing inequalities.

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Underlying these actions, three important underlying principles that can form thefoundation for efforts to tackle child poverty are:
Building support for child poverty reduction
As a recent report by the End Child Poverty Global Coalition notes, effective child poverty
reduction policies require governments to place child poverty reduction at the heart of theirpriorities.67 Governments also have a critical leading role to play in building broad support
for child poverty reduction through the engagement of other actors, including civil society,community leaders, employers, trade unions and non-governmental organizations, as well
as of children and adults living in poverty. As that report points out, building this level of
support may also require challenging myths about the causes of poverty.
Generating better data
The ability to learn from other countries, through comparative international analysis, restson the availability of high-quality, comparable data. As highlighted in this report, there
are still many gaps in such data. While it has been possible for this report to accumulatecomparable, aggregate data on income poverty rates from most of the 43 countries
covered, disaggregated information on poverty is limited. Moreover, data about thedepth of child poverty – the poverty gap – are scarce. These shortcomings hamper themeaningful monitoring of children’s income poverty.
There is even less information to work from in terms of non-monetary poverty. The current
potential to analyse deprivations across countries is therefore limited. Also striking is thealmost complete lack of data gathered directly from children about their experiences ofpoverty. Children from at least as young as 8 years old can reliably report on their accessor lack of access to key items and experiences that constitute multidimensional childpoverty.68 Gathering data from this age group is therefore a matter of choice. National
statistics offices and other key organizations gathering data should ensure that morepriority is given to including children in their ongoing plans for data-gathering.
Involving children in the poverty debate
Building on the previous point, this report concludes with a call for a more child-centred
approach to poverty measurement and to poverty reduction efforts. We still know
surprisingly little about children’s own ideas of what poverty is. When children have beenasked, their views and ideas have often differed from those of adults. The opportunity forchildren to become involved in policy areas affecting their lives is supported by Article 12of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Their potential to do so, andto be competent political actors, has started to be recognized in environmental debates.69
The time is overdue for them also to have the opportunity to be more actively engaged
in debates about child poverty. Children’s views and ideas should play a central role intackling this pervasive and persistent social problem.

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Technical Appendix
Sources for the data in the figures and tables in the report are as follows:
League TableThe sources below were used. Data used for calculations include all of the following
unless otherwise stated: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020, 2021.
The data for this table were obtained from the following sources:▸ Countries in EU27: From the Eurostat database at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ILC_LI02/default/table?lang=en&category=livcon.ilc.ilc_ip.ilc_li. In
the database the year is referred to as the year of data collection, but this relates toincome from the previous year. In the charts in this report the year referred to is theyear when the income was received. Data for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020, 2021.
▸ Australia: Household Income and Labour Dynamics of Australia - General Release 21.
Data for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020, 2021.
▸ Canada: Provided by Stat Canada. Data for 2013, 2019, 2020 and 2021.
▸ Chile: Obtained with support from UNICEF Chile. Data for 2013 and 2021.
▸ Colombia: Luxembourg Income Study database at https://dart.lisdatacenter.org/dart.
Data not yet available for 2021.
▸ Iceland: Statistics Iceland at https://px.hagstofa.is/pxen/pxweb/en/Samfelag/
Samfelag__lifskjor__3_fjarhagsstada__lagtekjuhlutfall/LIF01130.px/. Data not yet
available for 2021.
▸ Japan: Provided by Professor Aya Abe using data provided by the Ministry of Health,
Labor and Welfare, Japan. Data for 2013 and 2020.
▸ New Zealand: https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/child-poverty-statisticsyear-ended-june-2022/.
▸ Norway: Statistics Norway at https://www.ssb.no/en/statbank/table/08764/.
▸ Republic of Korea: Statistics provide by Statistics Korea.
▸ Switzerland: As for EU27 above. Data not yet available for 2021.
▸ Türkiye: As for EU27 above. Data not yet available for 2021.

▸ United Kingdom: Office for National Statistics at https://assets.publishing.service.
gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1144409/hbaisummary-results.ods.
▸ United States: Luxembourg Income Study database at https://dart.lisdatacenter.org/dart.
Figure 1. Child poverty rates, 2019–2021▸ Sources are as described for the league table above. Mexico is also included in thischart, although data was not available in time to include in the main league table. The
source is Luxembourg Income Study database.
Figure 2. National income and child poverty, 2019–2021▸ GNI per capita was obtained from the World Bank database: https://data.worldbank.
org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.KD, and the average was taken for the 2019–2021 period.
▸ Income poverty sources are as in the league table.

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Figure 3. Histories of poverty and child well-being at 14 years old▸ The figure is based on one presented in Rees, Gwyther, ‘Poverty and Children’s
Wellbeing at 14 Years Old’, Poverty, vol. 162, 1 February 2019, <https://cpag.org.uk/
welfare-rights/resources/article/poverty-and-children%E2%80%99s-wellbeing-14years-old>. Data come from the UK Millennium Cohort Study.
Figure 4. Persistent child poverty in European countries
Persistent poverty:▸ Eurostat: Data browser, ‘Persistent at-risk-of-poverty rate by sex and age - EU-SILC
and ECHP surveys’, <https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ILC_LI21__
custom_7279195/>.
Overall poverty:▸ Eurostat: Data browser, ‘At-risk-of-poverty rate by poverty threshold, age and sex - EUSILC and ECHP surveys’, <https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ILC_LI02__
custom_7279193/>.
Figure 5. Relative income poverty and child-specific material deprivation, EU, 2021
Relative income poverty:▸ Eurostat: Data browser, ‘At-risk-of-poverty rate by poverty threshold, age and sex - EUSILC and ECHP surveys’, <https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ILC_LI02__
custom_7279193/>.
Child-specific material deprivation:▸ Eurostat: Data browser, ‘Child specific material deprivation rate by age (children aged
less than 16 years)’, <https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ILC_CHMD01/
default/table?lang=en>.
Figure 6. Proportion of children often/always worrying about family money,
by age group▸ Authors’ analysis of Children’s Worlds 2016–2019 data set.
Figure 7. Child poverty rates by citizenship of parent(s), EU27
▸ Eurostat: Data browser, ‘At-risk-of poverty rate for children by citizenship of theirparents (population aged 0 to 17 years)’, <https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/
view/ILC_LI33/default/table>.
Figure 8. Child poverty in First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities and among
non-indigenous children, Canada, 2020
▸ Statistics Canada Table 98-10-0283-01, Individual low-income status by Indigenous
identity and residence by Indigenous geography, Census 2021. Cited in: Campaign
2000, Report Card on Family and Child Poverty in Canada, 2022.
Figure 9. Child poverty by disability status, New Zealand, 2022
▸ Stats NZ, ‘Child poverty statistics: Year ended June 2022’, 23 March 2023, <www.
stats.govt.nz/information-releases/child-poverty-statistics-year-ended-june-2022/>.

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Figure 10. Relative income poverty for children living in households with one or twoparents, OECD countries, 2018 or most recent▸ Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ‘OECD Family Database:
CO2:2: Child poverty’, <www.oecd.org/els/CO_2_2_Child_Poverty.pdf>.
▸ The relative income poverty rate in this chart is based on a threshold of below
50 per cent of equivalised median household income. Data are from 2018 or mostrecent year.
Figure 11. Mean GDP per capita in OECD countries, 2008–2021▸ World Bank, ‘GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2017 international $) –OECD members’, <https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.
PP.KD?end=2022&locations=OE&start=2008>.
Figure 12. Annual increase in consumer prices by category, OECD average, 2018–2022▸ Authors’ own calculations based on Organisation for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment, ‘Inflation (CPI) Indicator’, 2023, doi: 10.1787/eee82e6e-en.
Figure 13. Child relative income poverty rates in the EU, 2012–2021▸ Eurostat: Data browser, ‘At-risk-of-poverty rate by poverty threshold, age and sex - EUSILC and ECHP surveys’, <https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ILC_LI02__
custom_7279193/>.
Figure 14. Change in child income poverty rates, 2012–2014 to 2019–2021▸ Sources are as for the league table. Mexico is also included in this chart, althoughdata was not available in time to include in the main league table. The source is
Luxembourg Income Study database.
Figure 15. Selected comparisons of trends in child income poverty rates▸ Sources are as for the league table.
Figure 16. National income starting points and child poverty trends, 2012–2014 to
2019–2021▸ GNI per capita was obtained from the World Bank database: World Bank, ‘GNI per
capita, (constant 2015 US$)’, <https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.KD>.
Figure 17. Children living in severe material and social deprivation, EU, 2015 and 2021
▸ Eurostat: Data browser, ‘Severe material and social deprivation rate by age and sex’,<https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ILC_MDSD11__custom_7360300/
default/table?lang=en>.
Figure 18. The potential impact of the cost-of-living crisis in the EU up to December
2022▸ Chart reproduced from: Richardson, Dominic, et al., ‘Children and the Cost-of-living
Crisis: How food and energy inflation has increased poverty in households withchildren in the European Union’, UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research andForesight, <www.unicef-irc.org/publications/1787>.

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Figure 19. Expenditure on family cash benefits per child as a percentage of GDP per
capita, 2010 and 2019
▸ Authors’ own calculations based on constant GDP data from the World Bank World
Development Indicators, social expenditure data from the OECD SOCX Database, anddata on population by age from the OECD Data Warehouse.
▸ Data only available for 2019 for Costa Rica and Czechia. No data for Bulgaria, Croatia,
Cyprus, Malta, the Republic of Korea, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Türkiye due tomissing information on social expenditure for families. Data for Ireland for 2021 not shown
due to the potential overestimation of per capita GDP (Central Bank of Ireland, 2021).
Figure 20. Changes in fiscal balance and social protection expenditure per child,
2012/13 to 2018/19▸ Expenditure: Authors’ own calculations based on constant GDP data from the WorldBank World Development Indicators, social expenditure data from the OECD SOCX
Database, and data on population by age from the OECD Data Warehouse. Fiscal
balance: Kose et al. (2022).
Figure 21. Adequacy of social transfers in OECD/EU countries for two family types▸ Own calculations based on OECD Tax Benefit Model. Data for Türkiye aresupplemented by information from the Ministry of Family and Social Services and the
National Committee of Türkiye due to a new cash benefit started mid-2022 and thus
not captured in the OECD Tax Benefit Model. Data for CA and IL refer to 2021. No data
for MX, CO, CR and CL.
Figure 22. Absolute change in the adequacy of social transfers (family benefits andsocial assistance) for two ‘model families’, 2012–2022▸ Own calculations based on OECD Tax Benefit Model. Note: Family benefits do notinclude income tax reductions. No data for MX, CO, CR and CL. The figure refers toabsolute (percentage point) changes.
Figure 23. The child poverty reduction effect of cash benefits in 33 OECD and EU
countries (2021)▸ Own calculations based on EU-SILC. Data for GB refer to 2017, data for Czechia,
Luxembourg, Norway, Slovakia and Türkiye refer to 2020. Hungary excluded due
to data concerns. ‘Social transfers’ include all forms of public cash transfers except
for old-age and survivor’s pensions. Reduction refers to the relative (percentage)
reduction in the poverty rate.
Figure 24. Changes over time (2012–2021) in the child poverty reduction effect of socialtransfers in Europe▸ As for Figure 23.

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Table 1. Selected indicators of material deprivation for children in the EU, 2020–2022
Severe material and social deprivation:▸ Eurostat: Data browser, ‘Severe material and social deprivation rate by age and sex’,
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ILC_MDSD11/default/table?lang=en.
Housing problems:▸ Eurostat: Data browser, ‘Children (aged 0 to 17) living in a dwelling with a leaking roof,
damp walls, floors or foundation, or rot in window frames or floor - EU-SILC survey’,
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ILC_MDHO01C__custom_1764017/.
Child-specific material deprivation:▸ The rate is obtained from Eurostat: Data browser, ‘Child specific material deprivation
rate by age (children aged less than 16 years)’, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ILC_CHMD01/default/table?lang=en.
▸ And the mean number of items from Eurostat: Data browser, ‘ Mean number ofdeprivation items among the children deprived (children aged less than 16 years)’,
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/product/view/ILC_CHMD04.
Table 2. Overview of child and family benefits in Report Card countries▸ Authors’ own compilation based on ILO (2022) and a survey distributed to UNICEF
National Committees and Country Offices.
Table 3. Starting points and progress in tackling child poverty▸ Sources as for League Table.
Table A1. Model family parameters used for calculations in the OECD Tax-Benefit
Model
Model Family A
Family type

CoupleAge of adults

40

Number of children2

Age of children
Economic activity status (first adult)

4 and 6
Unemployed

Wage rate (first adult, % of the average wage)

N/A

Hours of work per week (first adult, % of full-time work)

N/A

Economic activity status (partner)

Unemployed

Wage rate (partner, % of the average wage)

N/A

Hours of work per week (partner, % of full-time work)

N/A

Model Family B
Family type

CoupleAge of adults

40

Number of children2

Age of children
Economic activity status (first adult)
Wage rate (first adult, % of the average wage)

54

Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

4 and 6
Employed
100%

Innocenti Report Card 18

Hours of work per week (first adult, % of full-time work)

100%

Economic activity status (partner)

Employed

Wage rate (partner, % of the average wage)

100%

Hours of work per week (partner, % of full-time work)

50%

Table A2. Relative income poverty for children (less than 18 years old) before and after
transfers, 2012 and 2021
2012

Belgium

2021 or latest

Beforetransfers
(%)

After
transfers(%)

Beforetransfers
(%)

After
transfers(%)

Latest year

32.2

17.2

30.0

14.1

2021

Bulgaria

38.1

28.4

37.4

25.9

2021

Czechia

22.4

11.3

22.7

11.8

2021

Denmark

25.3

9.1

23.6

10.1

2021

Germany

30.4

14.7

35.3

14.8

2021

Estonia

27.5

18.1

27.1

13.6

2021

Ireland

44.9

18.2

37.7

15.1

2021

Greece

35.2

28.8

29.8

22.4

2021

Spain

38.0

27.5

35.4

27.8

2021

France

33.9

17.6

38.2

21.7

2021

Croatia

34.7

21.8

23.1

16.0

2021

Italy

33.8

25.2

35.9

25.4

2021

Cyprus

27.5

15.5

24.8

14.9

2021

Latvia

32.6

23.4

29.0

16.2

2021

Lithuania

40.7

26.9

35.2

17.8

2021

Luxembourg

44.5

23.9

37.7

22.5

2021

Hungary

43.8

23.8

22.3

10.1

2021

Malta
Netherlands(Kingdom of the)Austria

34.3

24.5

27.1

19.3

2021

23.9

12.6

19.8

12.7

2021

39.5

18.6

36.0

19.2

2021

Poland

29.9

23.2

29.9

14.3

2021

Portugal

31.7

24.4

25.4

18.5

2021

Romania

42.3

34.7

35.9

27.0

2021

Slovenia

26.8

14.7

19.9

9.3

2021

Slovakia

30.6

20.3

32.9

22.1

2021

Finland

29.2

9.3

28.6

9.5

2021

Sweden

33.8

19.0

32.1

17.2

2021

Iceland

30.0

12.2

23

10.7

2017

Norway

29.0

10.5

32

14

2019

Switzerland

27.7

15.9

30.3

16

2020

United Kingdom

44.2

18.9

40

24

2017

Türkiye

35.5

33.7

38.6

34

2020

55

Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth

Source:EU-SILC - At-risk-of-poverty
rate before social transfers(pensions excluded fromsocial transfers) by poverty
threshold, age and sex.EU-SILC and ECHP surveys,<https://ec.europa.eu/
eurostat/databrowser/product/view/ILC_LI10>.

Innocenti Report Card 18

CodeCountry name

AU

Australia

AT

AustriaBE

Belgium

BG

Bulgaria

CA

Canada

CL

Chile

CO

Colombia

CR

Costa Rica

HR

Croatia

CY

CyprusCZ

Czechia

DK

Denmark

EE

EstoniaFI

Finland

FR

FranceDE

GermanyGR

GreeceHU

HungaryIS

Iceland

IE

IrelandIL

Israel

IT

Italy

JP

Japan

LV

LatviaLT

Lithuania

LU

Luxembourg

MT

Malta

MX

MexicoNL

Kingdom of the Netherlands

NZ

New ZealandNO

NorwayPL

PolandKR

Republic of Korea (the)RO

RomaniaSK

Slovakia

SI

Slovenia

ES

Spain

SE

SwedenCH

Switzerland

TR

TurkiyeGB

United Kingdom

US

United States

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Endnotes
1

The report covers all 43 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD) and/or the European Union (EU), but some statistics are only available
for a smaller number of countries.

2

United Nations Children’s Fund Office of Research, 'An Unfair Start: Inequality in children’s
education in rich countries', Innocenti Report Card 15, UNICEF Office of Research –Innocenti, Florence, 2018.

3

Marmot, Michael, et al., Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 years on, Instituteof Health Equity, London, 2020, <www.health.org.uk/publications/reports/the-marmotreview-10-years-on>, accessed 12 September 2023.

4

Chzhen, Yekaterina, et al., Children of Austerity: Impact of the Great Recession on childpoverty in rich countries, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017; Nygård, Mikael, et al., ‘The
Role of Cash Benefit and In-Kind Benefit Spending for Child Poverty in Times of Austerity:
An analysis of 22 European countries 2006–2015’, Social Indicators Research, vol. 146, 2019,
pp. 533–552, <https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-019-02126-8>, accessed 12 September 2023.

5This measure is expressed in international dollars (purchasing power parity) in 2017.

6

In Report Card 1, in 1995 Sweden had a relative child income poverty rate (based on
50 per cent of the median) of 2.6 per cent, and Norway a rate of 3.0 per cent.

7

It was not possible to include four countries in this league table – Costa Rica, Hungary,
Israel and Mexico – due to limitations in availability of data.

8

If two countries are equal on this average rank, they are ordered in increasing order of mostrecent child poverty rates.

9

Pearson correlation is -0.30.

10 Rees, Gwyther, ‘Poverty and Children’s Wellbeing at 14 Years Old’, Poverty, vol. 162,

1 February 2019, <https://cpag.org.uk/welfare-rights/resources/article/poverty-andchildren%E2%80%99s-wellbeing-14-years-old>, accessed 12 September 2023.
11 Children who are in a poor household in the current year and had been in at least two of thepreceding three years. See: Eurostat: Statistics explained, ‘At-risk-of-poverty Rate’, <https://
ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Glossary:At-risk-of-poverty_rate>,
accessed 13 September 2023.
12 United Nations Children’s Fund, 'Measuring and Monitoring Child Poverty', Position Paper,

UNICEF, New York, 2020, <https://data.unicef.org/resources/measuring-and-monitoring-childpoverty/>, accessed 13 September 2023.
13 For the full list, see Eurostat: Statistics explained, ‘Severe Material and Social Deprivation

Rate’, <https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Glossary:Severe_material_and_social_deprivation_rate_(SMSD)>, accessed 13 September 2023.
14 Defined as ‘a dwelling with a leaking roof, damp walls, floors or foundation, or rot in window

frames or floor’. Eurostat: Data browser, ‘Children (aged 0 to 17) living in a dwelling with aleaking roof, damp walls, floors or foundation, or rot in window frames or floor - EU-SILC
survey’, <https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ILC_MDHO01C/>, accessed 13
September 2023.
15 For a complete list, see: Eurostat: Statistics explained, ‘Children – Material Deprivation’,<https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Children_-_material_
deprivation>, accessed 13 September 2023.

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16 Patterns were very similar using the household-based severe material deprivation measure.
17 Pearson correlation was around 0.57.
18 Rees, Gwyther et al., Children’s views on their lives and well-being in 35 countries: A reporton the Children’s Worlds project, 2016-19, Children’s Worlds Project, Jerusalem, Israel,
2020, <https://isciweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Childrens-Worlds-ComparativeReport-2020.pdf>, accessed 13 September 2023.
19 Byrne, K., Europe’s Forgotten Children: Roma children and their families in Europe 2000 –2020. A child rights perspective, UNICEF Innocenti Global Office of Research and Foresight,
Florence, 2023, in press.
20 Stats NZ, ‘Impacts of Disrupted Data Collection on 2022 Household Economic Survey

Statistics’, Stats NZ, 23 March 2023, <www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/child-povertystatistics-year-ended-june-2022/>, accessed 13 September 2023.
21 The term ‘race’ tends to be used in statistical monitoring in the United States, where

typically ‘ethnicity’ is used in the United Kingdom. While these two countries produce
statistics on this topic, some other countries do not, based on legal restrictions on gathering
data on race/ethnicity.
22 Annie E. Casey Foundation/Kids Count Data Center, ‘Children in Poverty by Race andEthnicity in the United States’, September 2022, <https://datacenter.aecf.org/data/tables/44children-in-poverty-by-race-and-ethnicity>, accessed 13 September 2023.
23 Office for National Statistics, ‘Child Poverty and Education Outcomes by

Ethnicity’, 25 February 2020, <www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/
uksectoraccounts/compendium/economicreview/february2020/childpovertyandeducationoutcomesbyethnicity>, accessed 13 September 2023.
24 Bernard, Joseph, ‘Where Have All the Rural Poor Gone? Explaining the rural-urban poverty

gap in European countries’, Sociologia Ruralis, vol. 59(3), 2019, pp. 369–392, <https://doi.
org/10.1111/soru.12235>, accessed 13 September 2023.
25 United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service using data from the

US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, annual American Community Survey,
2019.
26 Stone, Juliet, ‘Local indicators of child poverty after housing costs, 2021/22’, Loughborough

University, Centre for Research in Social Policy, June 2023.<https://endchildpoverty.org.
uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Local-indicators-of-child-poverty-after-housing-costs_FinalReport-3.pdf>, accessed 16 October 2023.
27 Save The Children, Atlante dell’infanzia (a rischio) in Italia 2022, Save The Children, Rome,

November 2022, <www.savethechildren.it/sites/default/files/files/atlante_infanzia_2022.
pdf>, accessed 13 September 2023.
28 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Data, ‘Average wages(constant PPP)’, <https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/average-wages.htm>, accessed 23 Oct
2023.
29 United Nations Children’s Fund, ‘Immunization’, <https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-health/immunization/>, accessed 15 May 2023.
30 Azevedo, João Pedro et al., 'Simulating the Potential Impacts of COVID-19 School Closures

on Schooling and Learning Outcomes: A set of global estimates', Policy Research Working
Paper 9284, World Bank Group, Washington, D.C., June 2020, <https://openknowledge.
worldbank.org/entities/publication/aa72857a-4cff-53d8-8361-5a9b3e56b86b>, accessed 13
September 2023.

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31 At the time of writing (early September 2023) it is not possible to provide a definite rate for

the EU for 2022 as data for France are still marked as provisional and may change.
32 United Nations Children's Fund and International Labour Organization, More than a billion

reasons: The urgent need to build universal social protection UNICEF and ILO, Geneva,
2023.
33 United Nations Children’s Fund Office of Research, ‘Children of the Recession: The impact of

the economic crisis on child well-being in rich countries’, Innocenti Report Card 12, UNICEF
Innocenti - Office of Research, Florence, 2014.
34 Chzhen, Y., S. Hämäläinen and J. Vargas, ‘Significant changes to family-related benefits inrich countries during the great recession', Innocenti Working Paper, UNICEF Innocenti Office of Research, Florence, 2017.
35 Nygård, Michael., Marja Lindberg, Frederica Nyqvist and Camilla Härtull, ‘The role of cash

benefit and in-kind benefit spending for child poverty in times of austerity: An analysis of
22 European countries 2006–2015’, Social Indicators Research, vol. 146, 30 April 2019, pp.
553–552.
36 UNICEF & ILO, ‘More than a billion reasons: The urgent need to build universal social

protection’ UNICEF & ILO, Geneva, 2023.
37 Universal child benefits typically cover children until they reach 18 years of age, or, in somecountries, beyond 18 if they remain in education.
38 According to information provided by the UNICEF National Committee for the Republic ofKorea.
39 ‘Fiscal balance’ is the balance between government revenue and government expenditure.

A positive fiscal balance means a surplus.
40 Matsaganis, Manos, Cathal O’Donoghue, Horacio Levy, Manuela Coromaldi, Magda

Mercader-Prats, Carlos Farinha Rodrigues, Stefano Toso and Panos Tsakloglou, ‘Reforming
family transfers in southern Europe: is there a role for universal child benefits?’, Social Policy
and Society, vol. 5, no. 2, 2006, pp. 189–197.
Notten, Geranda, and Franziska Gassmann, ‘Size matters: targeting efficiency and poverty
reduction effects of means-tested and universal child benefits in Russia’, Journal of
European Social Policy, vol. 18, no. 3, 2008, pp. 260–274.
Salanauskaite, Lina, and Gerline Verbist, ‘Is the neighbour’s grass greener? Comparing
family support in Lithuania and four other New Member States’, Journal of European Social
Policy, vol. 23, no. 3, 2013, pp. 315–331.
41 The detailed description of the two types of family (household composition, earnings,

working hours) is presented in the Technical Appendix.
42 Housing benefits are non-contributory cash benefits aimed at contributing to the cost ofrental housing in some countries.
43 In Bulgaria, a new mechanism for periodically updating the level of social benefits enteredinto force in June 2023 and is expected to markedly increase benefit adequacy (based on asurvey conducted with National Committees and Country Offices).
44 Average not weighted by population.

Among countries that participate in Eurostat.
Authors’ calculations based on EU (Statistics and Living Income Conditions EU-SILC).
45 It should be noted that Türkiye adopted a new child benefit in mid-2022, the effects of which

are not yet captured in the most recent EU-SILC survey.
46 Poverty reduction effectiveness is defined by the per cent reduction in child poverty

attributable to cash benefits.

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47 Child income poverty rates before and after social transfers in 2012 and 2021 are presented

in the Technical Appendix.
48 Federal Planning Bureau of Belgium, ‘Consumer Price Index – Inflation forecasts’, <www.plan.

be/databases/17-en-consumer_price_index_inflation_forecasts>, accessed 12 August 2023.
49 International Labour Organization, ‘NATLEX: Database of national labour, social security

and related human rights legislation. Slovenia’, <www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex4.detail?p_
lang=en&p_isn=102184&p_country=SVN&p_count=520>, accessed 15 September 2023.
50 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Economic Surveys:

Slovenia 2020, OECD Publishing, Paris, July 2020, Chapter 3, July 2020, <https://doi.
org/10.1787/888934151868>, accessed 15 September 2023.
51 Eurostat: Data browser, ‘In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by sex’, 27 June 2023, <https://

ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/TESOV110/default/table?lang=en>, accessed 15
September 2023.
52 Eurostat: Data browser, ’At-risk-of-poverty rate by detailed age group’, <https://ec.europa.eu/

eurostat/databrowser/product/view/TESSI120>, accessed 23 September 2023.
53 Ministry of Family and Social Policy, ‘Family 500+ programme’, <https://www.gov.pl/web/family/family-500-programme>, accessed 24 September 2023.
54 Ministry of Employment and Social Development Canada, ’Bigger Canada Child Benefit

arrives tomorrow’, press release, July 2018, <https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-socialdevelopment/news/2018/07/bigger-canada-child-benefit-arrives-tomorrow.html>, accessed
24 September 2023.
55 Adams, Jason, Sid Ali Amedah and Maxime Fougère, ‘Measuring the effect of child benefit

on household expenditures: evidence from Canadian Households’ Survey Data’, Open
Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 8, no. 06, 2020, pp. 44.
Najjarrezaparast, Paniz and Krishna Pendakur, ‘How did the Canada Child Benefit affecthousehold spending?’, Canadian Public Policy, vol. 47, no. 4, 2021, pp. 479–496.
56 Men, Fei, Andrée-Anne Fafard St-Germain, Kent Ross, Ronaz Remtulla and Valerie Tarasuk,‘Effect of Canada Child Benefit on Food Insecurity: A Propensity Score Matched Analysis’,
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, vol. 64, no. 6, 2023, pp. 844–852.
57 See the estimates earlier in this report.
58 UNICEF Greece, ‘Deep Dive in Child Poverty and Social Exclusion’, Policy Brief, UNICEF,

Athens, <https://www.unicef.org/eca/media/20111/file/Deep%20Dive%20Greece%20-%20Policy%20Brief%20EN.pdf>, accessed 24 September 2023.
59 Parolin, Zachary et al., ‘Absence of Monthly Child Tax Credit Leads to 3.7 Million MoreChildren in Poverty in January 2022’, Poverty and Social Policy, Brief, vol. 6, no. 2, Columbia
University New York, 2022.
Measured using the Supplemental Poverty Measure, an absolute poverty measurecommonly used in United States statistics based on a cost-of-living calculation.
60 Burns, Kalee, Liana Fox and Danielle Wilson, 'Expansions to Child Tax Credit Contributed to

46% Decline in Child Poverty Since 2020', US Census Bureau, 13 September 2022, <https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/09/record-drop-in-child-poverty.html>, accessed 26
September 2023.
61 Parolin, et al., 2022.
62 United Nations, Resolution 70/1. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable

Development, adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015.
63 The content of this section broadly reflects the policy agenda already presented by the End

Child Poverty Global Coalition, Ending child poverty: A policy agenda, 2022.

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64 New Zealand Government, ‘Wellbeing Budget 2023 – Highlights’, <https://budget.govt.nz/

budget/2023/wellbeing/highlights.htm>, accessed 15 September 2023.
65 European Commission, ‘Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion: European Child Guarantee’,<https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1428&langId=en>, accessed 15 September 2023.
66 United Nations Children’s Fund, ‘Family-Friendly Policies: Redesigning the workplace ofthe future’, Policy Brief, UNICEF, New York, July 2019, <www.unicef.org/documents/familyfriendly-policies-redesigning-workplace-future>, accessed 15 September 2023.
67 End Child Poverty Global Coalition, Ending child poverty: A policy agenda, 2022.
68 Main, Gill, and Jonathan Bradshaw, ‘A Child Material Deprivation Index’, Child Indicators

Research, Vol. 5, September 2012, pp 503–521, Doi:10.1007/s12187-012-9145-7.
69 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, General Comment

No. 126 (2023) on Children’s Rights and the Environment with a Special Focus on Climate
Change, United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, 22 August 2023, <www.
ohchr.org/en/documents/general-comments-and-recommendations/general-commentno-26-2023-childrens-rights-and#:~:text=Summary,environmental%20harm%20and%20
climate%20change>, accessed 15 September 2023.

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Acknowledgements
The Innocenti Report Card 18 was researched and written by Gwyther Rees, Eszter Timar,
Finagnon Antoine Dedewanou, Frank Otchere, Alessandro Carraro and Sabbiana Cunsolo.
A group of expert peer reviewers and UNICEF advisers provided quality assurance.
The authors would like to thank the following peer reviewers for their valuablecomments and suggestions:
Alberto Minujin, Equity for Children – The New School, United States
Anne-Catherine Guio, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research, Luxembourg
Aya Abe, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan
Ian Orton, Social Protection Department, ILO, Switzerland
Jonathan Bradshaw, University of York, United Kingdom
Keetie Roelen, Open University, United Kingdom
Yekaterina Chzhen, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
and also the following experts for their advice:
Bryan Perry, Ministry of Social Development, New ZealandDave Gordon, University of Bristol, United Kingdom
Thanks also to Statistics Canada and Statistics Korea for their help in providing statistics toinclude in this report.
The following UNICEF staff members provided expert input at various stages of
the work:
Amenawon Esangbedo, Andrea Rossi, Enrique Delamonica, Isabella Castrogiovanni,
Jennifer Yablonski, Marta Arias, Monica Rubio, Natalia Winder-Rossi, Pamela Dale, Solrun
Engilbertsdottir, Tomoo Okubo.
The authors would also like to acknowledge and thank the essential and valuable supportof UNICEF National Committees and Country Offices throughout the process.
At UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight the following
colleagues contributed to this project:
Overall guidance: Bo Viktor Nylund, Celine Little, David Anthony,
Dominic Richardson and Patrizia FaustiniChild participation: Francesca Viola and Maria Rosaria Centrone
Administrative support: Lisa Gastaldin, Lisa Pecorini and Patricia Arquero Caballero
Editorial production: Amanda Marlin, Kathleen Edison and Tara Dooley
Communication: Adam Cathro, Cristina Pizzolato and Yasmina Nuny Silva

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UNICEF works in the world’s toughest places to reach the mostdisadvantaged children and adolescents and to protect the rightsof every child, everywhere. Across 190 countries and territories,
we do whatever it takes to help children survive, thrive and fulfil
their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.
And we never give up.
UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresighttackles the current and emerging questions of greatest
importance for children. It drives change through research andforesight on a wide range of child rights issues, sparking global
discourse and actively engaging young people in its work.
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with the evidence they need to build a better, safer world
for children. The office undertakes research on unresolved
and emerging issues, using primary and secondary data that
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uses foresight to set the agenda for children, including horizon
scanning, trends analysis and scenario development.
The office produces a diverse and dynamic library of high-level
reports, analyses and policy papers, and provides a platform for
debate and advocacy on a wide range of child rights issues.
UNICEF Innocenti provides, for every child, answers to theirmost pressing concerns.

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UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight,
Innocenti Report Card 18: Child poverty in the midst of wealth,
UNICEF Innocenti, Florence, December 2023.
© United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), December 2023

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for every child, answers

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