Europe's Wealthiest Countries Gripped By High Child Poverty Rates

The United Kingdom ranked almost last in the list of wealthy countries fighting child poverty, just above Colombia and Turkey.

The United Kingdom (+20%) and France, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland (all around +10%) saw the greatest increases in the number of children living in households experiencing financial hardship since 2014.

Slovenia topped the rankings, as reported by Rory Elliott Armstrong and Euronews recently.

The Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth report card showed shocking results, with some of the world's richest countries such as the UK, Spain, and Luxembourg falling to the bottom of the charts, suffering from sharp increases in child poverty between 2014 and 2021, as disclosed by UNICEF.

On the other hand, poorer countries such as Poland and Slovenia are faring best in efforts to tackle child poverty, followed by Latvia and the Republic of Korea.

The United Kingdom (+20%) and France, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland (all around +10%) saw the greatest increases in the number of children living in households experiencing financial hardship since 2014.

The impacts of poverty on children are both persistent and damaging. UNICEF director Bo Viktor Nylund said the study presents the most up-to-date, comparable picture of poverty affecting children in OECD and EU countries, and analyses governments’ income support policies for families with children.

It found that, despite overall decreases in poverty by nearly 8% across 40 countries between 2014 and 2021, there were still more than 69 million children living in households earning less than 60% of the average national income by the end of 2021.

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