Child poverty and child well-being in Europe

European Union (EU) indicators on poverty and social exclusion employ only two child breakdowns: the proportion of children living in households with incomes below 60% of the national median using the modified OECD equivalence scale and the proportion of children living in workless households. The UK also uses these indicators in the Opportunities for All series. This article first develops a new indicator of child poverty based on income, subjective and deprivation indicators which may be more reliable than income alone. It then explores the extent to which income poverty and worklessness represent international variation in child well-being using an index that we have developed. The conclusions are that: (1) relative income poverty and worklessness are poor indicators of child well-being, especially for some of the new EU countries; (2) deprivation has a stronger association with overall well-being than relative income poverty or worklessness; (3) there are a number of other single indicators of child wellbeing that could be used as proxies for overall child well-being; and (4) The EU (and the UK) could easily develop its own index of child well-being.