Aline Elisa Maretto Lang

EARLY CHILDHOOD ON THE WORLD AGENDA: IMPACTS ON THE REALITY OF CHILDHOOD

Aline Elisa Maretto Lang

Introduction

The concern for childhood and adolescence rights gained prominence towards the end of the 20th century in the worldwide scenario, culminating in incorporation in the agendas of national governments. The acknowledgement of these rights was embodied in the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Child during the United Nations (UN) Convention held in 1989, becoming an important milestone in this process (FUJIMOTO, 2016). Although this is a relevant document, the Declaration of the Rights of the Child does not address early childhood in a direct manner (UN, 1989). Many events occurred from the 2000s that combined to boost the visibility of early childhood in the international scenario and its inclusion in the agendas of national governments. The growth of this debate led to various worldwide commitments being agreed upon, requiring specific action from governments, as these agreements incorporated goals, targets and deadlines to be met, as well as the need to draw up policies and programmes enabling their achievement (LANG, 2020).

Among the global agreements, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of 2000 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of 2015, still in force, endorsed the need for public policies

addressing early childhood, encouraging countries to invest in intersectoral programmes, directed at care and attention in childhood development, covering the areas of health, nutrition, responsive care, learning from the very first years of life, protection and security (VENANCIO, 2020). The spotlight placed on early childhood in these agreements was reflected in the number of countries with intersectoral policies for development in early childhood, triggering an increase from 7 in 2000, to 68 in 2014, among countries where 45% of them were low and middle income (BLACK et al., 2017). What we find in actual practice is that there is a growing interest in the implementation of policies directed at this age cohort.

However, it should be noted that merely being included in the agendas of national governments does not necessarily mean improvement in the living conditions of early childhood. In that regard, it is necessary to check, in the specific situation, whether there were actually changes in the life of the children in that generational segment around the world. In this type of appraisal, the social indicators may reflect some important and specific aspects of reality through tangible figures, enabling the monitoring of the living conditions and well-being of the population both by the public power and civil society (JANUZZI, 2005). The social indicators also enable deepening the academic research on social change and the determinants of distinct social phenomena (JANUZZI, 2005). Nonetheless, it should be pointed out that we are keenly aware that children experience a complex reality during early childhood, determined by many factors, and that the analysis of various social indicators merely offers us clues as to how their living conditions changed during a particular historical period.

Hence, this text analyses whether the inclusion of early childhood in the agendas of national governments was reflected in an improvement in the living conditions of children in that age cohort in the members countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and in Brazil, from 2000 onwards. We decided to use social indicators on child mortality and poverty, as they meet the quest to monitor the government’s agenda in relation to the

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priorities defined for early childhood, in recent decades, concerning health and social vulnerability (JANNUZZI, 2005). Furthermore, the direct relationship of child mortality with social and economic factors has been recognised for a long time, being evinced in many Latin American studies (COSTA et al., 2001).

We worked with publicly available secondary data published in the OECD Family Database that provides transnational indicators on the family and policies for the family in OECD countries. The decision to conduct our analysis using OECD member countries was due to the fact that this organisation is composed of some of the most advanced economies of the world together with various emerging countries such as South Korea, Chile, Mexico and Turkey. In defining these countries as the focus of our analysis, it was possible to access a series of secondary data of countries with different levels of economic development, plus Brazil, thus illustrating how the stance taken by each country within the capitalist mode of production is reflected in its population’s living conditions.

This text is structured into three sections, with the first being the introduction where we present the topic under discussion and the methodology used. In the second, we discuss the findings obtained from the research, indicating the progress and setbacks regarding the living conditions of children in early childhood. Finally, the last section presents our closing comments.

Reality of early childhood after its entrance into government agendas

Since 1990, following the approval of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Child, enormous progress has been made in relation to child survival (Unicef, 2021). In general, the signatory countries of the convention have undertaken commitments to improve the living conditions of children, assuring the recently instituted rights. Over the last decades, it was the turn of early childhood to have been placed on government agendas and thus experience a consistent trend of institutionalisation of early childhood development (ECD)

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programmes within government systems, paving the way for an increase at a sustainable scale (Unicef, 2021). In other words, the political commitment to the ECD agenda has flourished.

In being placed on national government agendas, early childhood has been subject to specific policies and actions reflected in better living conditions, if we consider the evident advances made in reducing child mortality during recent decades (Unicef, 2021). “The global neonatal mortality rate fell from 37 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 17 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2019 – a decline of 52 per cent.” (Unicef, 2021, p. 8 – our translation). The mortality of this age cohort helps to give an idea both of the health situation and of the living conditions of the population, as children under the age of one year old are vulnerable to changes occurred in the social and economic environment, and to the interventions received (or not) in the health area (BEHM ROSAS, 2017).

Following the worldwide trend, the OECD member countries also showed considerable progress in cutting child mortality over the last few decades. However, the average of that decline stabilised around the turn of the century – in 2018 there were 4.0 deaths per 1,000 live births, only 2.8 points below the figure for 2000 (6.7 deaths per 1,000 live births). Even so, this represents a 40% reduction over the eighteen intermediate years. In Brazil, the average child mortality is higher than the average of the OECD countries, although the historical series analysed shows a decline in the mortality rate from 30.4 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2000, to 12.8 in 2018.

When analysing the child mortality rate of OECD member countries and Brazil, individually, we find a large variation. In 14 OECD countries, the child mortality rate was lower than 5 per thousand live births in 2000, while in 4 countries and in Brazil that rate was higher than 10. Following the inclusion of early childhood in government agendas, the discrepancy in that rate narrowed down a little, with more countries achieving considerable reductions in child mortality, and by 2018 there were 31 countries, out of the 37 OECD member countries, with a child mortality rate lower than 5 per thousand live births.

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Concerning the variation in child mortality rates between countries, we agree with the argument raised by Behm (2017) that this phenomenon has social roots and should be studied in the context of social theory. For the author, the origin of the problem lies in the way that humans appropriate and transform natural resources and construct relationships with other human beings to produce and appropriate the generated product, as this process is, above all, social and expressed in terms of a specific socioeconomic formation in the articulation of the many modes of production, in which one is dominant (BEHM ROSAS, 2017). In this context, the level of development of the productive forces is also important, as it determines, among other aspects, the efficiency with which humans transform nature for their own benefit. The level of development and sophistication of working instruments enable humans to eliminate the risk of hunger and epidemics in many countries (BEHM ROSAS, 2017). The combination of these elements – among others – leads to differences in the standards of living of different social sectors of a country, which also influences the occurrence of disease and death (BEHM ROSAS, 2017). This process is historical and dynamic, as in each society the social relations of production change and are generated successively over time.

The analysed data reveal that socioeconomic factors perform an important role in the origin of mortality in developing countries with prevailing high mortality, primarily in the first years of life, associated to avoidable causes. The inequalities persist, and the majority of child deaths continue occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and in poor families (Unicef, 2021). Worldwide, pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria continue to be the main causes of death of children less than 5 years old, being responsible for 15%, 8% and 5% of deaths, respectively (Unicef, 2021).

The rate of child poverty is also grounded in the mode of capitalist production and in the development of productive forces, placing people and countries in situations of inequality. This indicator reveals the socioeconomic conditions in which families with children in early childhood currently live. We find that on average,

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in OECD countries, 12.8% of children live in a situation of relative poverty, with the rates varying considerably between countries. In five OECD countries (Chile, Costa Rica, Israel, Turkey and United States), more than 20% of children live in relative poverty; with the rates being particularly high, around 27%, in Costa Rica. On the other hand, in 11 other OECD countries (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Slovenia and Sweden), 10% of children live in a situation of relative poverty. The cases of Denmark and Finland are especially noteworthy, where the relative poverty rate of children is merely around 4%. In the Brazilian case, the child poverty rate has fallen slightly, having shifted from 31.2 in 2006 to 30.1 in 2013. Despite the fall, this is still a high rate when compared to the OECD country average.

Although countries have invested in policies aimed at fighting against child poverty throughout the OECD, the child relative poverty rates have increased in various OECD countries, representing a step backwards in their living conditions. The rates of child poverty increased in 13 out of the 33 OECD countries with available data between 2008 and 2018. In the Netherlands, for example, that rate grew by about 3 percentage points. However, in another twenty OECD countries with available data, the child relative poverty rates fell during the same period, with the strongest reductions taking place in Canada, Ireland, Mexico and Turkey, where the rates fell by 3-4 percentage points, and in Latvia and Poland, where they fell by 6-7 percentage points.

The increased child poverty from 2008 is related to the financial crisis that erupted in that same year, triggering a contraction in the global economy. There was a negative relationship between the economic recession and the material living conditions of children, in other words, the absolute increases in child poverty were higher in countries that experienced larger declines of GDP per capita (CHZHEN, 2014). The effects of this crisis were stronger for child poverty, suggesting that household income is more sensitive to macroeconomic shocks (CHZHEN, 2014). However, it should be

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stressed that the consequences of the crisis were not experienced in the same way among families with children, in other words, in the countries most affected by the recession, Greece and Iceland, the child poverty rate and deprivation rates grew more rapidly among children of unemployed families, single-parent families and migrant families than among the population of children as a whole (CHZHEN, 2014). This means that the children living in countries where the impact of the crisis was stronger experienced a sharper downturn in their living conditions, specifically illustrating the extent to which the socioeconomic conditions of the countries and families affect the life of the children.

Closing comments

Based on the accessed data, we sought to analysis the extent to which the inclusion of early childhood in national government agendas led to an improvement in their living conditions and health. We observed that, in general, there has been a considerable decline in the child mortality rate and in the poverty rate. From the 2000s, both in the OECD member countries and in Brazil, the child mortality and poverty rates remained on a downward trend, although the pace decreased over this last decade. Nevertheless, in analysing the country data on an individual basis, we find an enormous inequality of childhood circumstances around the world, with differences the child mortality rate ranging from, for example, in Brazil and Turkey of 30.4 and 28.4 per thousand live births, respectively, compared to Iceland where it was 3 per thousand live births in 2000.

In general, it could be said that the inclusion of early childhood in the national government agenda has enabled numerous children worldwide to have access to basic social rights that, although already legally guaranteed, were not part of the reality of many of these children. However, even if the improved living conditions of many children is a fact, the analysed data reveals huge discrepancies between countries. It is important to highlight that the existence of such distinct living circumstances is related to the capitalist

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mode of production that transfers the responsibility of childhood care to families and “communities”, shifting what are supposedly public universal policies to the field of compensatory and focused policies (CAMPOS, CAMPOS, 2008). In this regard, attention is drawn to the fact that the emphasis on the formulation of public policies that ensure special protection and care to this age group has occurred precisely in a context of change of social policies and State Welfare models, in which there has been a metamorphosis of universalist nature, protective of social policies, towards a segmented, or contained, universalism, focused on some social groups defined as more vulnerable (PEREIRA, 2008).

Finally, it should be pointed out that the effects of the economic crisis combined with the ensuing austerity policies have negative impacts on poverty reduction and on the health of the more vulnerable population, clearly illustrated in the child poverty rates from 2008. The analysed data portray the enormous extent to which the actual reality of the health and living conditions of the population are grounded in the web of capital accumulation and concentration of wealth, reflecting the living conditions experienced and revealing the extent to which State is present (or not) (PITOMBEIRA, OLIVEIRA, 2020). We thus conclude that in order to improve the living conditions of children in early childhood, their inclusion in national government agendas, while important, has not been and is not currently sufficient. It is necessary to go beyond. It is necessary to address the root of the problem: the capitalist mode of production that engenders the socioeconomic conditions in which these children live (CAMPOS, 2012).

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