Child well-being in AlbaniaA report for UNICEF

Jonathan Bradshaw and ESA ConsultingUNICEF Workshop

Tirana28 January 2016

“The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children – their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialization, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they were born” (UNICEF 2007, p1)

Albania has no ‘State of Children’ report. This is an attempt to fill that gap.

  Until the start of the global financial crisis Albania

experienced a period of sustained economic growth. Since 2014 the economy has begun to grow again. How did children in Albania do before the crisis hit and how have they been doing since?

Introduction

Normative frame: UN Charter on the Rights of the Child

“the primary consideration in all actions concerning children must be in their best interests and their views must be taken into account”

Child well-being not just well-becoming Ecological child located in the family, friendship

networks, school, neighbourhood and society. Well-being is multidimensional. Happiness versus growth

Concept of child well-being

A shift from physical survival and basic needs to development and well-being.

A shift from negative indicators of problems and failure to positive indicators that hold societies accountable for more than the warehousing of children.

Child the unit of analysis A new focus on data at the local level. The development of more policy oriented

indicators.

Approaches

UNICEF State of the World’s Children and Innocenti Report Cards especially RC7 and RC11 (http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/series/16/)

OECD Doing Better for Children/How’s Life for Children (http://www.oecd.org/els/family/doingbetterforchildren.htm)

PISA (http://www.oecd.org/pisa/)

HBSC (http://www.hbsc.org/publications/international/)

Children’s Worlds (http://www.isciweb.org/?CategoryID=176&ArticleID=108)

Comparative reports

Material well-being: poverty and deprivation Child health Child subjective well-being and mental health Educational well-being: participation and

attainment Child maltreatment Children in care and looked after Child behaviour Child housing and environment

Domains of child well-being

What is the trend? Are things getting better or worse over time?

How do the regions of Albania compare? What are the associates of the outcomes that are

being reviewed – how do they vary by age, gender, region?

How does Albania compare with other countries? International comparisons are fraught with difficulties but without them we cannot establish how Albania is doing for her children. We may be able to say whether things are getting better or worse but we cannot say how well or badly we are doing or whether we are doing as well as we could be.

Framework of questions

Demography: Fertility

Number of children by age 1000s

Household structure

Number of children 2013

Households with children living in absolute poverty (in %) LSMS

Child poverty (at risk of poverty, 60% of median equalized consumption after transfers): 0-17 years LSMS

Children in workless households

Low Family affluence HBSC 2014 0-2/8Does your family own a car, van or truck,Do you have your own bedroom for yourselfDuring the last 12 months how many times did you travel away on holiday with your family?How many computers does your family have?

Low family affluence

Share of families with children included in the economic aid program per regions, in 2013

Health

Sexual behaviour

Smoking and drinking alcohol

Health behaviours

Health behaviours compared

Risk behaviour compared

Subjective health

Children who report high life satisfaction (in %)

Relationships with mother and father

Relationships with peers

Children reporting mental health symptoms at least twice a week

Subjective well-being

Child health compared

Immunisation rates

Education attainment: PISA scores

Educational participation

Views on school

Youth who is not employed or in the education system, 15-29 years

Experience of violence

Violence and maltreatment of children, 2013 Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth administrative data

Households with children reporting more than one housing problems (in %) 

Households with children reporting pollution or dirt as problems in the area (in %)

Households with children who report crime in the area is a problem (in %)

Housing and environment compared

Children are declining population group, Most indicators of child material well-being deteriorated over the

period of the crisis between 2008 and 2012, Albania has comparatively high levels of low family affluence. Child mortality has been falling but is still high comparatively. Most health indicators are good Most subjective well-being indicators are good. Teenage fertility rates are high in Albania. Educational attainment rose between 2009 and 2012 but is still

low comparatively. The data on educational participation is not very satisfactory but

staying on rates appear to be low and NEET rates very high. Children like school and feel moderately pressured by school

work. Link to attainment?

Conclusions

UNICEF should produce or encourage the production of similar reports periodically.

The introduction of the EU SILC survey to replace LSMS is an urgent priority. It will be important to ensure that the survey includes the optional module on child deprivation

The reduction of teenage fertility rate and infant mortality rates should also be set as a policy priority for improving child well-being.

Introduce a decent system of child transfers to replace “Ndihma Ekonomike”:

Children are the future of Albania Need to make more effort to monitor the well-being of

children and to devote more resources to understanding how they are doing and to ensuring that their childhood is as good as it can be.

Recommendations