How friendly are OECD countries towards children? Conceptualization and measuring issues.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC; United Nations, 1989) has brought upon a new realization of children's rights as including both nurturance and care rights and the newly adapted self-determination rights. However, efforts to measure countries' commitment to children have neglected self-determination rights. This study builds upon a previous study that took a holistic approach to studying African countries' commitment towards children using a "child friendliness index". This composite index was adjusted to fit the challenges faced by developed OECD countries and utilized sets of indicators on child self-determination and nurturance and care in order to create friendliness score for each country. Results show that Nordic countries are the most child-friendly, with high scores on both sets of indicators, while Korea, Spain, Turkey and the Czech Republic are the least. Results also show that there is no association between the two sets of indicators, and while Gini coefficient and GDP per capita were correlated with nurturance and care, they were insignificantly linked with child self-determination. These findings could indicate that child friendliness requires a commitment not only to securing the nurturance and care of children, but also to assist children in promoting their self-determination, an overlooked aspect in child welfare research and policy. This kind of action could enable children to participate as active agents in society. • Nordic countries are found to be the most child-friendly. • Korea, Spain, Turkey and the Czech Republic are found to be the least child friendly. • child nurturance and care and child self-determination are not correlated. • Gini coefficient and GDP were only correlated with nurturance and care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]