21-Jan-10

1

Doing Better for

Children

Dr Simon Chapple

OECD Social Policy Division

A Presentation to the Polish Parliamentary Social Policy Committee, 20th January 2010

Outline of the Report by Chapter

• Overview

• Comparing child well-being outcomes

• Public spending for children of different ages

• Policies for the under age 3’s

• Effects of sole-parenthood on child outcomes

• Intergenerational inequality

• Policy recommendations to enhance child well-being

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2

Child well-being in Poland compared to

selected OECD countries

Material well-

being

Housing &

Environment

Educational

well-being

Health &

safety

Risky

behaviours

Quality of

school life

Czech Republic 18 24 19 5 23 17

Denmark 2 6 7 4 21 8

France 10 10 23 19 12 22

Germany 16 18 15 9 18 9

Hungary 20 21 12 11 25 7

Netherlands 9 17 4 8 9 3

Poland 28 22 8 14 20 15

Slovak Republic 27 25 24 1 22 25

Sweden 6 3 9 3 1 5

United Kingdom 12 15 22 20 28 4

United States 23 12 25 24 15 14

Notes: 1 is best ranked and 30 is worst-ranked in the OECD. Countries with grey

shading are significantly lower than average, white is around the average and blue

is significantly above average performance.

Compared to the rest of the

OECD, Poland does poorly for

children on Material well-being

and Housing & Environment

…examine the 5 indicators

within these 2 dimensions in

more detail…

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Material well-being dimension

• Three indicators • Average child income

• Child poverty rate

• Educational deprivation

• Policy levers: tax and benefit system, childcare, Active Labour Market Policies, schools

• How does Poland do?

Average family income in Poland is at the

low end of the OECD

Data source: Data for this indicator is taken from the OECD Income Distribution Questionnaire, 2007 for the year 2005. The units are US dollars at

purchasing power parity exchange rates.

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Child poverty rates in Poland are high

Data source: Data for this indicator is taken from the OECD Income Distribution Questionnaire, 2007 for the year 2005. The child

poverty measure used is the proportion of households with children living on an equivalised income below 50% of the national median

income. Children are defined as those aged 0-17 years. Data on child poverty is missing for three countries: Japan, Poland and

Switzerland.

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Educational deprivation of 15 year olds in

Poland is average

Note: Educational deprivation data are derived from PISA 2006 (OECD/PISA, 2008). PISA asks questions about the possession of eight items,

including a desk to study, a quiet place to work, a computer for schoolwork, educational software, an internet connection, a calculator, a

dictionary, and school textbooks. The proportion of children reporting less than four of these educational items is used (less than four items best

represented results for cut-off points at three, four, five and six items). PISA collection processes employ standardised questionnaires,

translation, and monitoring procedures, to ensure high standards of comparability.

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Housing and environment

• Two indicators • House crowding for children

• Local environmental conditions

• Policy levers: tax and benefit system, public housing provision, housing subsidies, Active Labour Market Policies

• How does Poland do?

Housing crowding for Polish children is very

high

Note: Overcrowding is assessed though questions on "number of rooms available to the household" for European countries from the Survey

on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) conducted in 2006; on the "number of bedrooms" in Australia; on whether the household

"cannot afford more than one bedroom" or “cannot afford to have a bedroom separate from eating room” in Japan; and on the "number of

rooms with kitchen and without bath" in the United States. Overcrowding is when the number of household members exceeds the number of

rooms (i.e. a family of four is considered as living in an overcrowded accommodation when there are only three rooms – excluding kitchen

and bath but including a living room). Data is for various years from 2003 to 2006.

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Local environmental conditions for Polish

children are average

Note: Local environmental conditions are assessed through questions on whether the household's accommodation "has noise from neighbours or

outside" or has "any pollution, grime or other environmental problem caused by traffic or industry" for European countries; whether there is

"vandalism in the area", "grime in the area" or "traffic noise from outside" for Australia; whether "noises from neighbours can be heard" for Japan; and

whether there is "street noise or heavy street traffic", "trash, litter, or garbage in the street", "rundown or abandoned houses or buildings" or "odors,

smoke, or gas fumes" for the United States. Data is for various years from 2003 to 2006. Canada, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Switzerland, and

Turkey are missing.

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So much for outcomes for Polish

children…now let us turn to

consideration of the policy side,

starting with social spending on

children

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Patterns of public expenditure on

children, why and how?

• What is spent on children and at what age

• Timing matters for child well-being

• Early child development trajectories are more malleable than later ones (James Heckman)

• Therefore spend early….

Poland spends little on children: Cumulative

public spending over a child’s life

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Poland spends less than the OECD average relative to

family income (%)

Source: OECD (2009), Doing Better for Children., Paris OECD, unpublished data..

Poland distributes less spending to younger

than to older children than the OECD average

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Spending by year of child age in Poland as a percentage

of average family income

Source: OECD (2009), Doing Better for Children., Paris OECD.

So less is spent on young Polish

children…now consider the

policy side during these early

years (under 6 years)

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Policies from conception to

kindergarten to support children

• Three stages

• Prenatal

• Birth

• Post-natal up to compulsory school

• Considerable variation in policies across the OECD

• Evidence for the variation in policies is weak

• Much more work needed at a country level in evaluating whether these policies work for children

Pre-natal policies

• Universal pre-natal checkups. Typically too many universal checks/scans, lack of evidence-based content

• Pre-natal benefits (e.g. start child benefits at some point during pregnancy – as in France and the United Kingdom)

• Pre-natal maternal nutrition vouchers (United Kingdom, USA). Some evidence these are positive for birth weight

• Pre-natal maternal leave allocation (may be compulsory- Germany - non-compulsory - NZL, low in Poland)

• Pre-natal maternal health booklets (e.g. Germany, France, Japan)

• Public health advice (e.g. anti-smoking and drinking campaigns for pregnant women)

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Birth policies

• Days in hospital post-birth. Costly, no evidence of benefit

• Birth grants/baby bonuses – often seen as a mean to promote fertility (e.g. Australia, Belgium, France)

• Baby friendly hospitals (WHO) to promote breastfeeding (good evidence positive for child health and intelligence)

140 Euros or this? The Finnish baby

pack

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Post-natal period

• Universal well-child checks

• Universal or a cascading services intensifying according to risk

• Home visits (NZL, UK, Denmark) vs. centre-based follow-up (Sweden, France)

• Child vaccination programme

• Post-natal maternal, paternal and parental leave (little evidence child outcomes respond to changes in leave duration)

• Child benefits, which are typically neutral to the age of the child or increase with age

• Child health booklets (e.g. France, New Zealand)

• Transition to early childhood education

The Polish early childhood system in

context

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Unpaid parental leave in Poland is long

0.0

52.0

104.0

156.0

WeeksUnpaid leave FTE Paid Leave

Source: OECD Family database

Policy Recommendations I:

System design

• Support present and future well-being of children across all domains of well-being

• Develop policy to support child well-being as a system, with a coherent approach to the child life cycle and to the risks faced

• Monitor child well-being to identify improvements and areas needing policy attention

• Spend on children as if it were an investment portfolio. Subject the portfolio to a continuous iterative evaluation, reallocation and further evaluation to ensure child well-being is actually improved through time

• Set child well-being policy targets

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Policy Recommendations II: Resourcing

• Spend more

• pre-natally & early in the child life cycle

• On those at high risk of poor well-being, especially early on

• Ensure that later investments (mostly education) complement earlier investments in at-risk children

• Spend less on:

• Highly medicalised, universal policies surrounding child birth

• Programmes captured by advantaged children, especially post-compulsory school

Policy Recommendations III: Things to try

• Pre-natal interventions (fewer universal visits, more targeting to mothers at-risk, look for evidence-based content)

• Coordinating breast-feeding with paid parental leave

• Home visiting and early childhood education interventions for at-risk children

• Methods of targeting resources to the most disadvantaged children

• Conditional cash transfers for children

• Experimental and non-experimental policy evaluation options

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While the quality of children’s

lives in Poland is not always

good, is this compensated for by

high numbers of children?

No…aspects of the Polish

child/family system are not

working as well as they might

Polish fertility is relatively low and not rebounding

in recent years

Total fertility

rate, 2008

Change in

total fertility

rate, 2000-

2008

Poland (24th lowest) 1.39 Poland (21st lowest) 0.02

Average OECD-30 1.71 Average OECD-30 0.06

High: New Zealand 2.18 High: Sweden 0.36

Low: Korea 1.19 Low: Mexico -0.67

Source: OECD Family database. Replacement fertility=2.1 children per woman.

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Where next for OECD child and family

work? Doing Better for Families (2011)

This publication will consider:

– Family benefit packages and how they are changing

– Removing barriers to family formation (encouraging fertility)

– Removing barriers to reconciling work & family life

– Promoting child development and well-being

– Family dissolution and public policy

– Vulnerable families and vulnerable children

Some relevant details

www.oecd.org/els/childwellbeing

Consultation document password: cwbparis

www.oecd.org/els/social/expenditure

www.oecd.org/els/social/family/database

Simon.Chapple@oecd.org

+33 145 24 85 45