Czech children not poor, but have emotional problems - UNICEF

Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: February 14th, 2007

Czech children not poor, but have emotional problems - UNICEF Czech children do not suffer from poverty and they have good health care and education as compared to children from some two tens of developed countries, but they have more problems in relations with parents and peers, according to a study that UNICEF released today.

Czech Republic came 11th in the overall score beating USA, France and UK (all three often featured as role models in socio-economic areas). Czechs were 11th, 10th and 9th in financial position, health and education respectively and it's infant mortality rates are one of the lowest but their overall ranking was brought down by "assessment of relations between children and their peers, and children and their parents." where CR scored 19th (ahead only of UK and US). Here are some other quotes from the article about the report.

The Czech Republic is among the states with a rather high number of incomplete families. Czech 15-year-old children have lunch and dinner with their parents less often than children from the other countries. On the other hand, Czech children chat with their parents more often than other children. Though Czech children were rather satisfied with their lives, the country placed 17th in children's subjective assessment. The study shows that some 7 percent of children aged under 17 live below poverty level in the Czech Republic. The country placed 7th. Czech children were nevertheless the richest by the number of the books. Only 2 percent of Czech 15-year-old children said that their family had fewer than ten books at home. The Czech Republic has the highest percentage (14 percent) of children aged 11, 13 and 15 who smoke at least once a week. Some 14 percent of children also got drunk at least twice. Nearly one in five 15-year-old children had sex.

But among all the complaining about our emotional well-being, it is perhaps easy to forget that...