Barns ekonomiska utsatthet. Årsrapport 2008

This report is the sixth 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 children’s economic wellbeing in Sweden during the decade of 1990s. Five annual reports covering the years 2000 – 2005 have already been published and in 2006 Save the Children released a report on the economic vulnerability of children of single vs two-parent families. The present report reflects the economic development and child well-being in the years prior to 2006, with special focus on the changes in poverty rate that have occurred during the last year both at national and regional levels.
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.