American Children Paying a High Price for Growing Inequality, OECD Finds

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WASHINGTON, DC, October 13 -- U.S. child income poverty lies substantially above the OECD average with 20.5% of American children living in a household with a disposable income of less than half of the median income, a new OECD report finds. In Canada, child income poverty is 14.5%, while the OECD average is 13.7%

The OECD’s latest How’s Life? shows the extent to which some children are getting a better start in life than others. Across OECD countries, income poverty affects one child in seven, while 10% of children live in jobless households.

Presenting the report at the 5^th OECD World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy in Guadalajara, Mexico, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said, “Policies will fail to build a better society if they do not take into account the needs of all of its members – particularly the very young. The fight against inequality begins by ensuring that everyone enjoys opportunities to thrive in life, especially from an early age.”

The report also provides the latest evidence on well-being among the wider population, including changes in well-being over time, inequalities in well-being outcomes among different groups, and critical resources that will shape well-being in the future.

“The OECD’s work on well-being is providing essential insights into whether we are succeeding in delivering better and more inclusive growth. This report broadens our understanding of progress by focusing on people and the quality of their lives, not just on whether GDP is going up.” said Mr. Gurría.

Looking at child well-being for the first time, How’s Life? shows how children from more affluent backgrounds tend to have better health and a happier school life. Children from less well-off families find fewer of their classmates to be kind and helpful and are more likely to be bullied at school. Life satisfaction, reading and problem-solving skills, communication with parents and intentions to vote in national elections in later life are all lower among children from less affluent backgrounds.

Other findings from North America:

On average, American children spend more time with their parents than children in most other OECD countries.
The United States ranks at the bottom of the OECD in terms of child health outcomes: infant mortality is among the highest in the OECD, 21.1% of American children report their health as fair or poor and 9% of American children are obese.
Infant mortality in Canada is higher than in the OECD on average. Furthermore, 4.7% of Canadian children are obese, the second highest share in the OECD.
Contrary to the OECD trend, Canada’s teenage birth rate has increased since 2007 and now lies above the OECD average
Compared to other OECD countries, regional inequalities are large in the United States: 8.6% of people in New Hampshire have an income of less than half of the American median income, the share is 24.4% in Louisiana.
Indicators of work-life balance show that 1 in 8 employees in the OECD work very long hours (50 or more per week). Full-time workers in France, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, Norway and Germany enjoy at least an extra hour of leisure per day than those living in the US, Poland, Canada and Australia.

How’s Life? highlights the importance of volunteering, finding that it makes a significant contribution to well-being – both for society at large and for volunteers themselves. Unpaid, socially useful work for the community produces goods and services that are not captured by conventional economic statistics, and whose value amounts to around 2% of GDP on average in the OECD. 55.7% of the American working-age population report that they engaged in formal volunteering during the past 12 months, compared to 48.7% in Canada. The U.S. and Canada among had the highest shares of volunteerism in the OECD area, and far above the OECD average of 34.2%.

The How’s Life? report is part of the OECD Better Life Initiative launched in 2011 to measure well-being and progress beyond traditional metrics such as GDP. Another component of the Initiative, the Better Life Index, allows users to compare countries according to their own vision of what constitutes well-being.

Individual Country highlights and further information of How’s Life? 2015 are available at www.oecd.org/howslife.

To request a copy of How’s Life? or to request an interview, media are invited to contact the Miguel Gorman, Media Officer at the OECD Washington Center (miguel.gorman@oecd.org / +1 202 785-6323)

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Working with over 100 countries, the OECD is a global policy forum that promotes policies to improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.