Ireland has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the industrialised world, according to a new study by Unicef on children in economically advanced nations.
Ireland has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the industrialised world
The assessment, titled Report Card 7, Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries, is the first study of childhood across industrialised countries, Unicef said.
Despite the strong economic growth of the 1990s and sustained anti-poverty efforts, the report noted that Ireland was only placed 22nd out of the 25 countries in terms of the material well-being of children.
The report which considered relative income poverty, children in households without an employed adult, and direct measures of deprivation found child poverty remains above the 15 per cent mark in Ireland, Britain and the US.
The four Nordic countries of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark were found to have achieved the lowest rates of relative income poverty all registering levels of under 5 per cent.
The study found that the Czech Republic ranks above several of the world's wealthiest countries including Germany, Italy, Japan, the US and the UK.
Under the overall measure of child well-being which compiled measures of material well-being, health, safety and education, Ireland ranked ninth out of 21 countries.
Unicef looked at 40 separate indicators of child well-being to gauge the lives of children in the majority of economically advanced nations.
The Netherlands topped the table of overall child wellbeing, ranking in the top 10 for all six dimensions of child well-being while the US and UK were ranked 20th and 21st respectively.
The report said: "No single dimension of well-being stands as a reliable proxy for child well-being as a whole and several OECD countries find themselves with widely differing rankings for different dimensions of child well-being."
The report also found there was no consistent relationship between GDP per capita and child well-being.
In terms of health and safety, the report said the great majority of children born into today's developed societies enjoy unprecedented levels of health and safety.
"Almost within living memory, one child in every five in the cities of Europe could be expected to die before his or her fifth birthday; today that risk is less than one in a hundred," it noted.
Loss of life among older children was found to be even more uncommon with fewer than one in every 10,000 young people dying before the age of 19 as a result of accident, murder, suicide or violence.
Ireland was ranked above average in the category of children's educational well-being.
In a measure of the educational achievement of 15-year-olds in terms of reading, mathematical and scientific literacy, Ireland was ranked 11th out of 25.
The US, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece were ranked the lowest while Finland, Canada and Australia topped the table.
Under the category of 'subjective well-being' which measured the child's own perceptions, Ireland came fifth out of 20 countries with the UK ranked bottom.
