An index of child well-being in the European Union

Abstract

While the living conditions of children and young people in the European Union have gained increasing recognition across the EU, the well-being of children is not monitored on the European level. Based on a rights-based, multi-dimensional understanding of child well-being we analyse data already available for the EU 25, using series data as well as comparative surveys of children and young people. We compare the performance of EU Member States on eight clusters with 23 domains and 51 indicators and give a picture of children's overall well-being in the European Union. The clusters are children's material situation, housing, health, subjective well-being, education, children's relationships, civic participation and risk and safety. © Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006.