Too Little, Too Late: An Assessment of Public Spending on Children by Age in 84 Countries
Abstract
This joint report aims to inform the development of comprehensive and integrated child policy portfolios globally, by mapping and reviewing how much public money is spent on children, how it is spent across different sectors, and if in the life course it is spent evenly across all countries with usable data. The report builds on previous work that was limited to high-income countries (OECD, 2009, 2011, 2023). Given the overwhelming evidence of the importance of early childhood development, this report focuses in particular on the patterns of expenditure choices on these earliest years. The purpose of this work is to assess how systems work for the average child with the aim of informing policymakers and stakeholders about adequacy, balance and coherence in the public policy portfolio for children.
Examining the evidence from 84 countries, representing 58 percent of the world’s children, the report shows that many countries worldwide are disproportionately and systematically failing younger children and poorer children. This finding is directly at odds with the best evidence on how to promote children’s well-being, how to generate the largest social and economic returns on public investment, and how to address damaging and costly inequalities within countries. Moreover, striking differences in real expenditure levels between high-, middle- and low-income countries only further exacerbate existing inequalities in the rate of social and economic development globally.
Underinvestment in children—in good times or bad—is a slow-burning and fundamental crisis for development, and needs to be addressed with as equal urgency as conflict, COVID-19 and climate breakdown. Coordinated and corrective action is needed from development stakeholders and in domestic child policies now, if countries are to meet their obligations to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and make good on the promises of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Report by UNICEF Innocenti–Global Office of Research and Foresight, Columbia University–Center on Poverty and Social Policy, and University of York–the York Policy Engine.
Report written by Dominic Richardson (UNICEF Innocenti), David Harris (UNICEF Innocenti and Columbia University Center on Poverty and Social Policy), John Hudson (University of York) and Sophie Mackinder (University of York).
Suggested Citation:
Richardson, Dominic, David Harris, Sophie Mackinder, and John Hudson. 2023. Too little, too late: An assessment of public spending on children by age in 84 countries, Innocenti Research Report, UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti, Florence.