Barns ekonomiska utsatthet. Årsrapport 2006

This report is the fourth annual update of the study “Barns ekonomiska utsatthet under 1990-talet. Bidrag till ett kommunalt barnindex” (The economic vulnerability among children in Sweden during the 1990s. Contribution to a national child welfare index), which examined child poverty trends in Sweden during the decade of the 1990s, a turbulent decade in the field of social welfare in Sweden, due to a fall in total employment and downsizing in the public service. The four annual reviews on this subject already published cover the years 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004. An in-depth analysis of the economic vulnerability of children of single vs two-parent families during the year 2003 was also published in 2006.
The present report reflects the economic development and child well-being in the years 2000-2004, and describes a set of changes that have occurred both at national and regional levels during the last year.
Child poverty is defined on an index combining two factors – low levels of relative income or living with income support (a guaranteed minimum level established by the Swedish Parliament in 1998). Save the Children Sweden has worked to raise awareness of child poverty in Sweden since releasing its first report in 2002 calling for a national action plan to address the issue and combat the growing incidence of child poverty. The studies on child poverty are a first step towards a child index, which would annually reflect changes in various aspects of children’s welfare at the municipal level