Our kid care doesn't rate

Kiwi children have some of the bleakest futures in the developed world, with a new report ranking New Zealand 28th out of 30 for child outcomes.

The low ranking out of 30 OECD nations was based on a comparison of areas including education, deprivation, suicide and infant mortality.

New Zealand was in the bottom half for most of those measures, except literacy, while our suicide rate was the worst, at more than twice the OECD average, and our teenage birth rate was also high, surpassed only by Mexico, the United States, Turkey and Great Britain.

The only countries below us were Mexico and Turkey, while Denmark came out on top and other Nordic countries, Israel and Korea ranked highly.

The Netherlands stood out as having good outcomes for a relatively low expenditure.

The report, commissioned by a coalition of child advocacy organisations called Every Child Counts, was written by Infometrics economist David Grimmond, who said his research did not explain why the Netherlands performed so well, but work had begun to look at that, and the government was being urged to research the Dutch approach.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said she was open to that and that our ranking was a "real concern".

She said the report backed government plans in early childcare, work testing for beneficiaries and asking parents on various benefits to work part-time.

It also found New Zealand had one of the lowest rates of spending on children at $3 billion, or 1.5% of GDP in 2010/11, and that it was not as well used as in other countries, especially when poor outcomes cost the country 3% of GDP, or $6b.

Grimmond said New Zealand's spending on young children was disproportionately low. Spending here tended to be focused on older children, despite a growing awareness that spending in the early years had the most impact.

The report recommended government attention and funding be focused on the first 1000 days of a child's life, and warned that support for at-risk families tended to discourage people from working.

Countries with the best child outcomes also had high female participation in the workforce.

Every Child Counts chairman Murray Edridge said Mexico and Turkey were "pretty poor" company to be in, but New Zealand performed well in caring for older people and some of those resources might be able to be used for younger generations.

Labour deputy leader Annette King said if the government had enough money for tax cuts it could afford to invest in children. "It's all about priorities."

- © Fairfax NZ News