Measuring child poverty: new league tables of child poverty in the world's rich countries
Report Card 10 considers two views of child poverty in the world’s advanced economies: a measure of absolute deprivation, and a measure of relative poverty. The first measure is a 14-item Child Deprivation Index that represents a significant new development in international monitoring, drawing on data from the European Union’s Statistics on Incomes and Living Conditions survey of 125,000 households in 31 European countries, which has included a section on children for the first time. Children were considered 'deprived' if they lacked two or more of the items, which ranged from three meals a day, to an Internet connection. The second measure covers the EU and an additional six OECD countries (Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United States) and examines the percentage of children living below their national 'poverty line' - defined as 50 per cent of median disposable household income.
Child Well-Being in Advanced Economies in the Late 2000s
This paper aimed at comparing the well-being of children across the most economically advanced countries of the world while discussing the methodological issues involved in comparing children’s well-being across countries. A Child Well-being Index was constructed to rank countries according to their performance in advancing child well-being. The Index used 30 indicators combined into 13 components, again summarised in 5 dimensions for 29 rich countries. Data from various sources were combined to capture aspects of child well-being: material well-being, health, education, behaviour and risks, housing and environment. The scores for the countries on all variables and combinations of variables were discussed in detail. The Child Well-being Index revealed that the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries (excluding Denmark) did relatively better than the other countries while Romania and the United States performed well below the average. Overall, serious differences existed in child well-being across countries suggesting that in many, improvement could be made in the quality of children’s lives.
An assessment of the Impact of Devolution on Women Empowerment in Nakuru County
-Women have been grossly marginalized in organs of decision-making and governance structures. The Constitution of Kenya has sought to bridge this gap by providing both women and men the right to equal treatment, including the right to equal opportunities in political, economic, cultural and social spheres. However, gender equality has not been achieved and women are still lagging in terms of decision making processes. The main objective of the study was to detemine the impact of devolution on women empowerment in Nakuru County. The study found that substantive women representation, development of programs and accessibility of services had a positive effect on the women empowerment in Nakuru County. The study also found out that increased accessibility of Services by women influenced women empowerment, this study also concludes that the introduction of development programs had the greatest impact on women empowerment in Nakuru County. The study recommends that more programs targeting women should be introduced as these have the greatest impact on women empowerment. The findings may be used to make conclusions and recommendations.