UNICEF released a report last Tuesday showing that millions of poor urban children are actually faring worse than their rural peers. The report identifies 4.3 million poor urban children worldwide who are more likely to die before their fifth birthday than those living in rural areas, and said 13.4 million are less likely to complete primary school.
These findings overturn the popular assumption that children in cities benefit from what is commonly known as the ‘urban advantage’, the idea that higher incomes, better infrastructure and proximity to services grant urban dwellers better lives.
“Children should be a focus of urban planning, yet in many cities they are forgotten, with millions of children cut off from social services in urban slums and informal settlements,” Laurence Chandy, UNICEF Director of Data, Research and Policy, said in a statement.
Up to 1 billion people are estimated to live in slums, hundreds of millions of whom are children, according to the UN children’s agency.
Patrin Watanatada of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, a child advocacy organization, welcomed the report. “Cities can be wonderful places to grow up, rich with opportunities – but they can also pose serious challenges for a child’s health development,” she told This Is Place, adding that poor transport links, insufficient access to health clinics and parks, as well as growing air pollution can all exacerbate life for urban children.
