Governments should invest more money on children in the first six years of their lives to reduce social inequality and help all children, especially the most vulnerable, have happier lives, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) first-ever report on child well-being in its 30 member countries. Doing Better for Children shows that average public spending by OECD countries up to age six accounts for only a quarter of all child spending. But a better balance of spending between the “Dora the Explorer” years of early childhood and the teenage “Facebook” years would help improve the health, education and well-being of all children in the long term, according to the report.
Doing Better for Children compares public spending and policies for children with key indicators of child-wellbeing in OECD countries. These include education, health, housing, family incomes, and quality of school life. Countries that spend relatively more on their youngest children include Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, and Norway. In contrast, Ireland, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United States spend relatively little on young children. The U.S,. for example, spends US$20,000 on children up to age six, compared with an OECD average of US$30,000. Total public spending on children in the U.S., however, at US$140,000, is higher than the OECD average of just over US$120,000. But despite this higher spending, U.S. children do less well in areas such as health and education than their peers in most other countries.
Further information on Doing Better for Children, including country highlights, multilingual summaries, a media briefing, and key data representing main stories, is available at the following page on the OECD website.