Part 3 - Country studies and emerging issues

Summary

Introduction

The third part of this volume presents several innovative national studies that highlight country-specific developments, data developments or methodological breakthroughs that are interesting for an international audience. The first two chapters analyse the evolution of child poverty in nations that have undergone important socioeconomic transitions in the last decade. Jane Falkingham focuses on the impact of economic change on child welfare in Central Asia by taking a multidimensional view of child well-being in these transition nations. The selected indicators include both economic measures of poverty, based on incomes and expenditures, and selected capability-based indicators, reflecting children’s health, survival, educational attainment, personal development and their social exclusion. This data was collected by the World Bank in a uniform survey and provides an opportunity to study economic well-being and child outcomes more efficiently and effectively for this set of nations than can currently be achieved by the rich country studies, which do not have this unique type of data.

The results of the study reveal that the cost of economic transition has been particularly high in Central Asia, and children are clearly among those who have suffered the most. Child poverty rates exceed those of the general population, children’s nutritional status is poor and its consequences are akin to those observed in parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Still, infant mortality has fallen in Central Asia and remains low compared to other countries in a similar economic situation. Further, immunisation programmes have continued near-universal coverage, and primary school enrolments have been maintained at a reasonably high level. Nevertheless, Falkingham notes that the combined impact of low social spending and low household income might be beginning to take its toll. Children whose families are not able to contribute towards their education and childcare increasingly face the risk of being excluded from access to these services. Even when they continue to have access, low social spending starts to reduce the quality of these services. Falkingham observes that:

Given that in the Central Asian region children take pride of place within the family and culturally prioritised within the family’s hierarchy of needs, the observed levels of malnutrition among young children and growing absences from school are indicators of a society in severe distress. (p 251)