Andaluciae
14-02-2007, 18:01
UN Protectorates or whoever that is already got this up. You lose!
Edit: And there's a timewarp! Eep!
Socialist Pyrates
14-02-2007, 18:02
remember the thread about spanking and how some here ridiculed Sweden's no spanking law?...Sweden is rated at # 2 for child well being according to UNICEF the USA and Britain are at the bottom of the top 21 rankings...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6359849.stm
Unicef report: Key points at-a-glance
The UK has come bottom of a Unicef league table for child well-being across 21 industrialised countries.
The study looked at a total of 40 indicators in six categories. Here is a summary of some of the report's key findings.
REPORT SUMMARY
#
European countries dominate the top half of the overall league table, with the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland claiming the top four places.
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The UK and United States are in the bottom third of the rankings for five of the six categories covered. The six categories are material well-being, family and peer relationships, health and safety, behaviour and risks, and children's own sense of well-being (educational and subjective).
# No country features in the top third of the rankings for all six dimensions of child well-being, although the Netherlands and Sweden come close to achieving this.
MATERIAL WELL-BEING
# Child poverty remains above the 15% mark in the three southern European countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy) and in three Anglophone countries (the US, the UK, and Ireland).
#
There is no obvious relationship between levels of child well-being and GDP per capita. The Czech Republic, for example, achieves a higher overall rank for child well-being than several much wealthier countries.
# A total of nine countries - all in northern Europe - have brought child poverty rates below 10%.
FAMILY AND PEER RELATIONSHIPS
# Approximately 80% of children in the countries under review are living with both parents. This ranges from more than 90% in Greece and Italy to less than 70% in the UK and 60% in the US.
# Even in the lowest ranked countries, almost two-thirds of children still regularly eat the main meal of the day with their families, with France and Italy maintaining the tradition most of all.
HEALTH AND SAFETY
# Fewer than one in every 10,000 young people die before the age of 19 as a result of accident, murder, suicide or violence.
# European countries occupy the top half of the report's child health and safety table, with the top five places claimed by the four Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
# Infant mortality rates range from under three per 1,000 births in Iceland and Japan, to over six per 1,000 in Hungary, Poland and the US.
BEHAVIOUR AND RISKS
# The overall OECD league table of young people's risk behaviours sees the UK at the foot of the rankings by "a considerable distance".
# Risk behaviours considered in the study include smoking, being drunk, using cannabis, fighting and bullying, and sexual behaviour.
# Only about a third of young people eat fruit daily.
# Only about a third of young people exercise for an hour or more on five or more days a week - youths take most exercise in Ireland, Canada and the US, and the least in Belgium and France.
EDUCATIONAL WELL-BEING
# Finland, Canada, Australia, and Japan head this particular table in the report.
# The UK is rated in the bottom third of the table for educational well-being.
# Four southern European countries - Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal - occupy the bottom four places.
SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING
# Children's subjective sense of well-being appears to be markedly higher in the Netherlands, Spain, and Greece and markedly lower in Poland and the UK.
# Approximately 80% of young people consider their health to be good or excellent in every OECD country except the UK.
# The Netherlands, Norway and Austria, are at the head of the table with over a third of their schoolchildren admitting to "liking school a lot".