Child Welfare (damn this is a long one)

The UNICEF report has come out ranking the UK 21st out of 21 industrialised countries with regards to child welfare. Apparently child poverty accounts for 16% of children in this country. It's all true, barely a day goes by when I don't hear some under-16 child complaining about the rent, mortgage re-payments, or the cost of food-shopping. There just aren't enough jobs in the chimney sweeping and loom operators industries any more, and those still about pay very little.

Okay children by themselves are not in a state of poverty; their entire family is, but wait that shouldn't be. With tax credits (Ha!) and all sorts of benefits no family should be living below the poverty line anymore, therefore no child could even be deemed as being in poverty by whatever definition you use.

Now if mum and dad are using said benefits to buy booze and cigarettes then there's a problem, that would be called neglect. What's the difference between child poverty and child neglect? Well with the first you can promise more benefits (by cutting other services; a zero-sum game) appoint a minister in charge of Child Poverty (which we've got) and make lots of speeches about how you're tackling it; all without actual having to do anything. With child neglect you need to get social services involved, possibly split the family up and end up paying even more money then is claimed in benefits, and get a ton of bad publicity about "breaking up the family home". It's not just tomato, toMAHto; the right choice of words makes all the difference.

Hold on one chimney-sweeping minute read the press release regarding the UNICEF report. Poverty only gets mentioned under the heading "Children's material well-being" is that to do with their health? Well the very next heading is in fact "Children's health and safety" so I doubt it, they can't be talking about material possessions can they? Oh no little Johann in Norway's got an Xbox360, but little John in the UK hasn't. Can't be that; can it?

So as I've always advocated check the source, in this case that'd be the Innocenti Research Centre site; ah not available to the public until 10am. So have the press been getting advance copies or just been reading the press release. I'm sure journalists of such integrity have been looking at the source and not just regurgitating what UNICEF have high-lighted. I'll find out in half-an-hour.

Right 52-pages later.

Material well-being (p6) is defined as percentage living in homes with incomes below the national median. Percentage of children living in a home without a employed adult, and finally

• percentage of children reporting low family affluence
• percentage of children reporting few educational resources
• percentage of children reporting fewer than 10 books in the home

Okay lets start with the median bit, for those without the statistical background median is the middle of the group, you arrange everyone's income lowest to highest and draw a line so that half the group fall on each side. That means from the start you have 50% of the population below or at the median, so this shows how many of them have kids?

It's meaningless, if I took a group of millionaires all of whom had children and did the same then by that measurement 50% would be in the relative income poverty group. If the 'poorer' millionaires didn't have any children then the results would be zero.

The report even points this out stating that although the USA has a higher relative income poverty then Hungary, you get $24,000 in the US compared to $7,000 in Hungary. Pointless measurement when used to compare with other countries.

Let's take that last point they measure I'd point out the key word "reporting", but that's also pointless. What they did was ask four questions for the affluence test

1. Does your family own a car, van or truck?
2. Do you have your own bedroom for yourself?
3. During the past 12 months, how many times did you travel away on holiday with your family?
4. How many computers does your family own?

Brilliant. So believe in using public transport; share a computer and a bedroom; and have regular family days out rather then go away for a long period of time; you're deemed non-affluent. Yet again the report highlights the problems, got a car - nope I live in London and don't need one.

Educational resources - at home do you have:

• a desk for study
• a quiet place to work
• a computer for schoolwork
• educational software
• an internet connection
• a calculator
• a dictionary
• school textbooks.

Okay what's with the middle three computer, software and internet connection? Apart from the fact it muddles with the previous "How many computers..." question the answer is none, I use the excellent facilities available at our public library.

The only question asked that can't be twisted is 'do you have more then 10 books?', and to be blunt if you've only got 15 or so have the children even noticed or realised that.

Yet again the report clearly indicates

"The available data fall short of capturing all the complexities of child poverty"

Okay my main point was showing up the whole "child-poverty" nonsense, but it gets better. Health and Safety (p14) looks at infant mortality rate and low birth weight, fine; immunisation, still fine; and deaths from accident and injuries aged 0-19, sorry 19! What definition of child are you using? Who knows. Despite using the term child and children throughout the report at no point do they actual tell you want they think is a child. Better yet going through the data the age range seems to shrink and grow (how many infants did they question about their parents vehicles?) So it's not even consistent in that way.

Educational well-being's up next (p20). Apart from once again getting muddled with the education resources indicator, this assesses the following:

• At age 15 -
  
  • average achievement in reading literacy
  • average achievement in mathematical literacy
  • average achievement in science literacy


• percentage aged 15-19 remaining in education
• percentage aged 15-19 not in education, training or employment
• percentage of 15 year-olds expecting to find low-skilled work

So the three R's despite the fact our country is moving towards a service industry; university take up, again discounting the fact that some countries charge whilst others don't; the left-school who are unemployed and how many 15 year old's need low-skilled work (which would be none you can't employ 15 year old's here)

So a 2-hour exam for the first criteria, great as we're pushing continual assessment. Simple questions for the rest with the only note-worthy one being for the last point

"what kind of job do you expect to have when you are about 30 years old?"

Those talking about low-skill jobs obviously weight the results or are just being honest given the current working climate. Yep another disguised question about the unemployment rate of the country.

Do I want to look at "Relationships" (p24)? Do you think your peers are "kind and helpful"? Do you eat and talk with your families, do you live in a single parent home or live in a stepfamily? All bollocks. Even though I believe in family unity, eating and talking together, I wouldn't use it as a criteria of child welfare. Can you prove that this is better then the alternative - no, well then why are you using it?

Ah "Behaviour and risk-taking" (p28)

"Do you eat breakfast?"

What! What the hell are you on about? Yes I have three bowls of sugar-coated cereal with extra sugar sprinkled on top all swimming in a chocolate milkshake. Oo tick in the good behaviour column there. Bilge! The rest of the questions I'll agree with - amount of fruit you eat, smoking etc. Overweight? By whose measure? Nope not telling you, just that from height and weight (of the low number who responded) we can tell you if you're overweight or not. Note nobody asks the opposite "How many are underweight?"

I'm not even going to bother with "Subjective well-being" (p36) because yeah the best person to assess their own welfare is a teenage kid. Pfft!

So conclusions. Despite my lambasting there are concerns, some things do need to be looked at; on the whole though of no real use in a comparative sense. Final quote:

Findings that have been recorded and averaged may create an impression of precision but are in reality the equivalent of trying to reproduce a vast and complex mountain range in relatively simple geometric shapes. In addition, the process of international comparison can never be freed from questions of translation, culture, and custom.

Remember that next time the media bleat on about us coming 21st.