Trends in Child Well-Being in European Union Countries During the Great Recession

The goal of this paper is to monitor the impact of the Great Recession on child well-being in countries of the European Union. We use data from the EU-28 plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey to document the change in children’s well-being from 2007/8-2012/3. We classify countries into ‘least’, ’moderately’ and ‘most’ exposed to the global recession and document trends in well-being outcomes for each of the three groups. We find a strong correlation between exposure to the crisis and reductions in child well-being since 2007/8. Trends in labour market outcomes for young people aged 15-24 are notable in that while declines are sharpest among countries most affected by the crisis, there is a decline in all countries, even those least affected. We also discuss individual countries’ performance on a selection of child outcomes through the use of League Tables (LT); these LTs rank countries, showing top and bottom performers, based on the progress/setback experienced over the period 2007/8-2012/3. These results should be interpreted as early evidence on child well-being during the crisis, since the study period covers only up to 2012/3 for most indicators, and only through 2011 for monetary poverty.