Sweden among the top in UNICEF survey

A lot of things have changed over the last twenty years but it is still good to be a child in Scandinavia. 

  • Sweden – still good for children to grow up in, according to Report Card 11, a new survey from UNICEF. Photo: Hans Jensen

  • A survey ranking developed countries in terms of children’s well-being, shows that Sweden is still a good place to be a child. The survey, or Report Card 11 as it is called, ranks 29 developed countries according to the overall well-being of their children.
    Each country’s overall rank is based on its average ranking for the five dimensions of child well-being considered:
    Material well-being
    Health and safety
    Education
    Behaviors and risks, and
    Housing and environment.
    The Netherlands top the list, closely followed by Norway, Iceland, Finland, and Sweden on fifth place (Denmark comes in as number 11). Sweden’s overall well-being rank (the total of all 5 dimensions) is 6.2 (compared to the Netherland’s top 2.4 overall rank). When downloading the report, it can be read under Key Findings that:
    “Four Nordic countries – Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – sit just below the Netherlands at the top of the child well-being table. Four southern European countries – Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain – are placed in the bottom half of the table.”
    The five bottom spots are occupied by
    25 Greece
    26 United States
    27 Lithuania
    28 Latvia and
    29 Romania.
    The full report can be found here: UNICEF Innocenti Report Card 11

  • Mumindalen in Finland, HC Andersen celebrations in Denmark or the world of Pippi and others at Astrid Lindgrens Värld in Sweden, Scandinavia is a good place to be for a child.

  • Photo from Astrid Lindgrens Värld by Bo Zaunders.