Child Poverty in Perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries

This report builds and expands upon the analyses of Report Card No. 6 which considered relative income poverty affecting children and policies to mitigate it. Report Card 7 provides a pioneering, comprehensive picture of child well being through the consideration of six dimensions: material well-being, health and safety, education, family and peer relationships, subjective well-being, behaviours and lifestyles informed by the Convention on the rights of the child and relevant academic literature. The six dimensions of child well-being represent a significant step forward in measuring and comparing children’s well-being across the countries of the OECD. There are significant relationships between some of the dimensions chosen. Poverty, affects many aspects of child well-being in many well-documented ways: particularly when prolonged, poverty has been shown to have an effect on children’s health, cognitive development, achievement at school, aspirations, self-perceptions, relationships, risk behaviours and employment prospects.