Understanding what Makes a Good Childhood, and How Data can Help


UNICEF’s recent report ‘Worlds of Influence: Understanding what Shapes Child Well-Being in Rich Countries’ provides a detailed overview of the wide range of factors that can be seen to contribute to a good childhood. It also highlights the vital importance of reliable, regular and accurate data in order to be able to measure and monitor factors such as mental well-being, physical health and skills for life with confidence.

The evidence from the 41 countries covers a broad range of topics, from children’s chances of survival, growth and protection, to whether they feel that they are learning and being listened to, to whether their parents can provide the resources to give their children the best chance at a happy life. The report relates children’s experiences to their country’s specific policies and contexts.

Most importantly, the report emphasises the significance of listening to and consulting children in order to create positive change.

It is clear that it is time for all countries to value their wealth, invest in their services and work harder to help children make the most of the only childhood that have.

Key Findings

One of the most critical findings from the report is that even countries with strong economic, social and environmental conditions are still a long way from reaching the Agenda for Sustainable Development’s 2030 targets. Children’s rights and well-being need to be accelerated up the global agenda, particularly in light of the devastation and disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Listed below are just some of the key statistics from the report:

• In 12 of 41 countries, less than 75 percent of children aged 15 have high life satisfaction

• Suicide is one of the most common causes of death for adolescents aged 15 to 19

• 1 in 15 infants in rich countries is born with low weight

• In 10 countries, more than one in three children is overweight or obese

• The number of obese children (aged 5–19) worldwide is expected to grow from 158 million to 250 million by 2030

• Two in five children (on average) do not acquire basic reading and mathematics skills by age 15

• In some countries, at least 1 in 10 parents report no family or friends they can count on for help with looking after their children

• In almost half of rich countries, more than one in five children live in poverty

• Measles immunization rates have dropped in 14 out of 35 countries with available time-series data

• In 11 of 41 countries, at least 5 percent of households do not have safely managed water

How can data help?

The report relies substantially on high-quality administrative data sets and international surveys. It states that the following criteria were used to guide the selection of key indicators:

1.      Coverage – data should be available for the large majority of the 41 countries

2.      Recency – data relating to 2016 or later should be available

3.      Relevance – the data should be relevant to cross-national comparisons

4.      Variability – there should be enough variability in the indicators between countries

5.      Comparability – the indicators should have the same meaning across cultures

The evidence shows that there are no reliable or comparable data sets on children’s mental health, violence and protection or participation for this set of rich countries. More routine and consistent data would be extremely useful to help highlight key areas for prioritisation.

There is also a worry that if there are significant data gaps for the world’s richest nations, this disparity will be even more striking when assessing low-income countries. Missing, outdated and inconsistent datasets can make it hard to measure and monitor some of the key aspects of children’s well-being, which can have a significant impact on the ability to make accurate and meaningful policy recommendations.

What can we do?

Here at the Collaborative, we believe that data can make a real difference to children’s lives. It is important that we work collaboratively across sectors and with governments to ensure that we are doing all we can to fill in the gaps and have the right evidence available to influence policy. This can be achieved through linking data sets, deploying new data science techniques and replacing old methodologies with innovative new ideas.

We are proud to be working on projects across many of the domains highlighted in this report. We have recently released an Impact Collaborations challenge question around adolescent mental health, and have made good progress on our nutrition, population, poverty and HIV projects. We have also developed three new projects in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, all of our projects seek to target one or more of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

We found this report to be a striking reminder of the importance of data in evidence based policy making. We will continue working with our project teams to develop better methodologies, access and analyse existing data and provide key insights into how to transform data into practical, tangible outputs that can be used to ensure that every child has a good childhood.

You can read more about our current projects here.

You can read the full UNICEF report here.