Poor kids in a rich country

US CHILD WELFARE

PARIS - America has some of the industrialised world's worst rates of infant mortality, teenage pregnancy and child poverty, even though it spends more per child than better-performing countries such as Switzerland, Japan and the Netherlands, a new survey indicates.

In light of this, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a Paris-based watchdog of industrialised nations, has urged the United States to shift more of its public spending to its youngest children, under the age of six, to improve their health and educational performance.

The report released on Tuesday, Doing Better for Children, marks the first time the OECD has reported on child well-being within its 30 member countries.

The US spends an average of US$140,000 ($202,000) per child, well over the OECD average of $125,000. But this spending is skewed heavily toward older children between 12 and 17, the OECD survey showed.

US spending on children under six, a period the OECD says is key to children's future well-being, lags far behind other countries, amounting to only $20,000 per child on average compared to the OECD average of $30,000, the survey showed.

"A better balance of spending between the 'Dora the Explorer' years of early childhood and the teenage 'Facebook' years would help improve the health, education and well-being of all children in the long term," the OECD said.

As a result, it says, infant mortality in the US is the fourth-worst in the OECD after Mexico, Turkey and Slovakia.

American 15-year-olds rank seventh from the bottom on the OECD's measure of average educational achievement.

Child poverty rates in the US are nearly double the OECD average, at 21.6 per cent compared to 12.4 per cent.

The rate of teenage births in the US is three times the OECD average, with only Mexico recording a higher rate among OECD countries, the report said.

Mr Timothy Smeeding, author of Poor Kids in a Rich Country: America's Children in Comparative Perspective, said America's troubles stem from a flawed mix of government spending and not enough help for the working poor.

"Most of what we spend is for health care, so there is less money to spend on income support programs, to keep the incomes of the poor up. We do spend highly on education, but it's off the charts on health care," he said by telephone from the United States.

Some European countries have public preschools and day cares, for example.

Mr Smeeding added: "Young women need to learn to wait to finish their education, not have a kid at 18 or 19. And it is these poor, unwed mothers having most of the babies in the US."

Among other OECD countries, France, Germany, Britain and Belgium spend more on their children than the US , while Switzerland, Australia and Italy spend less, according to the survey.

The countries that spend the most on early childhood include Hungary, Finland and the Slovak Republic. AP

From TODAY, World – Thursday, 03-Sep-2009

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