Kid-Friendly Countries

This report provides a compilation of data collected from countries with population of greater than 10 million (except Afganistan, North Korea and Taiwan.) This represents less than half of the total countries in the world but these countries represent more than 90% of the world's population.

According to this report, "Kids are the best measure of how well government policies percolate to the most sensitive and defenseless segment of society. Children are more vulnerable than adults to hazards of any form due to their size, physiology and behavior. Children under age five breathe more air, drink more water and eat more food per unit of body weight than adults, so they experience a greater risk from pathogens and pollutants. The well being of a child is also a good indicator of the well being of their parents."

The report states that "Four million babies die within a month of their birth. One hundred twenty-five million primary school-aged children do not attend school. Another 150 million children start primary school, but drop out before they complete four years of education. Nearly one billion people, one-sixth of the world's population, are illiterate and most of them are women."

The report indicates that "the United States has the highest level of births to teens among developed countries at 19 percent. In 1996, the U.S. Federal Government spent more than $38 billion to provide services and support for families that began with a teen pregnancy."

The report highlight the following:

• China has the highest rate of contraceptive use.
• The mortality rate for children under the age of five is the same in Malaysia and the United States (8 per 1,000 live births).
• The infant mortality rate is 9.12 in Chile, 7.27 in Cuba, 6.88 in the United States, 4.9 in Australia and a shocking 199.66 in Mozambique.
• Developed countries spend a tiny amount of money on education. Germany spends one percent of its total budget on education, while the U.S. and Canada spend two percent each.
• 98 percent of the population in Egypt, but only 12 percent in Afghanistan and Ethiopia, have access to improved drinking water sources.
• Almost two percent of the population in Portugal, Poland, and Hungary live on less than a dollar a day. 73 percent of the population in Mali lives on less than a dollar a day.
• 96 percent of Thailand's population and 92 percent of Algeria's population have access to improved sanitation facilities, while the figure is only 53 percent in Romania.
• Only 5.18 percent of Ethiopia's children are enrolled in secondary education.
• Cases of pediatric leukemia have increased by 27 percent from 1973 to 1990 in the United States.

The data from this report is effected by political shifts in various regions. For example, "The Russian Federation was taken as Russia in some data sources and the Russian Federation in others." Occasionally "data in a particular indicator is not from the same year, or was collected or tabulated using a dissimilar methodology."

The report notes that for reasons of time, resources and data constraints it was not possible to complete a report card for every country.

Click here for an overview of the report.

Click here for the full report in PDF format.