There are three dimensions with two components each:

• Mental wellbeing:

  • Life satisfaction

  • Adolescent suicide

• Physical health:

  • Child mortality

  • Overweight

• Skills:

  • Academic proficiency

  • Social skills

Report:

• Child mortality has decreased in most of the countries.

• Social skills are stable relatively.

• A mixed trend of adolescent suicide rate.

• Remaining three indicators—life satisfaction, overweight and academic skills show a declining trend in most of the countries.

The top three countries are Netherlands, Denmark and France. The bottom eight countries show declining trend in atleast two of the three dimensions. Japan is the only country where the life satisfaction of children has increased from 2018 to 2022. The rates of overweight and obesity improved only in Italy and Portugal.

Way Forward: Prioritising policies and interventions which focus on the child’s overall development through:

• Specialist services, parenting programmes, and social and emotional learning at schools to improve the mental well-being of children.

• Promotion of healthier food ecosystems and physical activity and policies on environmental protection to bring improvement in overall physical health.

• Special focus on learning and enabling environments for skill development.

• Measures to mitigate future shocks.

• Placing decisions of children’s wellbeing in their own hands to better understand them and to find solutions.

• Holistic approach on all the dimensions of a child’s life.