Does Child Income Poverty Measure Child Well-Being Internationally?

Abstract

To date the main indicator used to compare the well-being of children in industrialised countries has been the proportion of children in income poverty. This article exploits data from recent work developing indices of child well-being in EU, OECD and CEE/CIS countries to explore whether child income poverty is a good representation of a wider understanding of child well-being. Using the poverty estimates in each index, as well as more recent estimates for the European Union, we find that for OECD countries income poverty still has some explanatory power but this is not the case for EU and CEE/CIS countries.