A new UNICEF report confirms that Canada’s children are not doing well in comparison to other wealthy nations. Ranked 17 out of 29, Canada has maintained its position in the middle while more children live in poverty today than in 1989, when the government passed a unanimous resolution to end child poverty. Clearly the status quo of transfers and social supports is not enough.
Canada’s ranking for material well-being is below average for poverty, obesity (only Canada, Greece and the US have child obesity rates above 20%) and children’s life satisfaction. The poverty measure that UNICEF uses is the LIM – Low Income Measure – which sets the poverty line at 50% of the median income. Almost 1 million children across Canada live in poverty when using this measure – that is 1 in 7 kids. In First Nation communities the rate is even worse at 1 in 4.
Canada also fell to the bottom of the list in regards to “further education”, which looks at the number of children between the ages of 15-19 who are in school or college. However, Canada does score well in terms of the education achieved by the age of 15.
Failing our children is failing our future. As the UNICEF report notes:
“failure to protect and promote the well-being of children is associated with increased risk across a wide range of later-life outcomes. Those outcomes range from impaired cognitive development to lower levels of school achievement, from reduced skills and expectations to lower productivity and earnings, from higher rates of unemployment to increased dependence on welfare, from the prevalence of antisocial behaviour to involvement in crime, from the greater likelihood of drug and alcohol abuse to higher levels of teenage births, and from increased health care costs to a higher incidence of mental illness.”
A positive note near the end of the report mentions that Canada and Australia have put into place mechanisms monitoring the early years before school. The majority of provinces in Canada are using the Early Development Instrument (EDI) which is implemented in the middle of the first year of full-time school and involves 100 questions that teachers use to assess the well-being and school readiness of children. Key results from the EDI have shown:
- 25% of children experience challenges that prevent them from fully participating in school
- 30% of children from low-income families are “developmentally vulnerable” compared to 15% from the rest of the population
Canada drops seven places in rank when children actually assess child well-being, and that is a stark reminder that children in this country require more, especially those living in poverty.
Learn more at UNICEF Canada.
