In what amounts to a direct challenge to the government’s austerity agenda and widespread tightening of access to benefits, Unicef ranks the UK 16th out of 29 developed countries for overall wellbeing – and warns that teenagers’ prospects trail behind their counterparts in many European countries, including Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Portugal.
Continuing high rates of teenage pregnancy, relatively low levels of young people in education, employment or training and problems of alcohol abuse in young teens push the UK down the international league table.
Unicef said the situation facing young people in Britain is “expected to worsen” as a result of government policies, and it warns that “since 2010 the downgrading of youth policy and cuts to local government services are having a profound negative effect on young people”.
More indicators that this thing is not working. See Jack Cassidy in the New Yorker back in December and the related Warston post here.
Another indicator could be children chewing wallpaper because they don’t have anything else to eat.
And now a world renowned NGO is warning the UK government.
What’s next?
Unicef: British children facing bleaker future under coalition