Child Welfare, Education, Inequality, and Social Policy in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Using international data on child well-being and educational attainment, this article compares child well-being in the United States to member countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Multiple measures of child well-being are analyzed, such as material well-being (including poverty, unemployment, and income inequality), child health and safety (birth weight, infant mortality, health care, and childcare), educational attainment, and family and peer relationships (including generational cleavages). Using Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory as an organizational framework, the impact and interrelatedness of these systems on educational attainment are examined, with parallels drawn between a nation's social policies, child well-being, and educational attainment. The author asserts that social policy in the United States is more comprehensive than is commonly believed, although the redistributive benefits of social policies are allocated much differently compared to OECD countries. Explanations for comparative differences in social policy include differences in political culture and political development as well as racial and class conflict. The author concludes that it is difficult to ignore the role of race and socioeconomic class in explaining differences in social welfare expenditures between the United States and European countries because the pattern of social welfare distribution (broadly conceived—including programs, tax breaks, and incentives) falls largely along racial and class lines.

Notes

The traditional metric used to determine whether someone is poor is lack of money. However, a growing number of researchers, led by James Foster and Sabina Alkire, have begun to consider “access to health care, reliable transportation, adequate sanitation,” and other indices (such as affordable child care) in determining the poverty level (Bartlett, 2010, p. 1). The current method of calculating poverty in the United States, which does not consider many of the variables listed above, underestimates the actual number of Americans living in poverty.