Children, it has long been recognized, are a special group.
They do not choose their parents, let alone the broader conditions into which they are born.
They do not have the same abilities as adults to protect or care for themselves.
Illustration: Mountain People
That is why the League of Nations approved the Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child in 1924 and why the international community adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.
Sadly, the US is not living up to its obligations. In fact, it has not even ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The US, with its cherished image as a land of opportunity, should be an inspiring example of just and enlightened treatment of children.
Instead, it is a beacon of failure — one that contributes to global sluggishness on children’s rights in the international arena.
Though an average US childhood might not be the worst in the world, the disparity between the country’s wealth and the condition of its children is unparalleled.
About 14.5 percent of the US population as a whole is poor, but 19.9 percent of children — some 15 million individuals — live in poverty.
Among developed nations, only Romania has a higher rate of child poverty.
The US rate is two-thirds higher than that in the UK and up to four times the rate in the Nordic nations.
For some groups, the situation is much worse: More than 38 percent of black children and 30 percent of Hispanic children are poor.
None of this is because US citizens do not care about their children. It is because the US has embraced a policy agenda in recent decades that has caused its economy to become wildly unequal, leaving the most vulnerable segments of society further and further behind.
The growing concentration of wealth — and a significant reduction in taxes on it — has meant less money to spend on investments for the public good, like education and the protection of children.
As a result, the US’ children have become worse off. Their fate is a painful example of how inequality not only undermines economic growth and stability — as economists and organizations like the IMF are finally acknowledging — but also violates the nation’s most cherished notions of what a fair society should look like.
Income inequality is correlated with inequalities in health, access to education and exposure to environmental hazards — all of which burden children more than other segments of the population.
Nearly one in five poor children in the US are diagnosed with asthma, a rate 60 percent higher than non-poor children.
Learning disabilities are diagnosed almost twice as frequently among children in households earning less than US$35,000 a year than they are in households earning more than US$100,000.
And some in the US Congress want to cut food stamps — on which about 23 million US households depend, threatening the poorest children with hunger.
These inequalities in outcomes are closely tied to inequalities in opportunities. Inevitably, in nations where children have inadequate nutrition, insufficient access to healthcare and education, and higher exposure to environmental hazards, the children of the poor will have far different life prospects from those of the rich.
And, partly because the lifetime prospects of a child in the US are more dependent on their parents’ income and education than in other advanced nations, the US now has the least equality of opportunity of any advanced country. At the US’ most elite universities, for example, only about 9 percent of students come from the bottom half of the population, while 74 percent come from the top quarter.
Most societies recognize a moral obligation to help ensure that young people can live up to their potential. Some even impose a constitutional mandate for equality of educational opportunities.
However, in the US, more is spent on the education of rich students than on the education of the poor. As a result, the US is wasting some of its most valuable assets, with some young people — bereft of skills — turning to dysfunctional activities. US states like California spend about as much on prisons as on higher education — and sometimes more.
Without compensatory measures — including preschool education, ideally beginning at a very young age — unequal opportunities translate into unequal lifelong outcomes by the time children reach the age of five. That should be a spur to policy action.
Indeed, while inequality’s harmful effects are wide-reaching and impose huge costs on economies and societies, they are largely avoidable.
The extremes of inequality observed in some nations are not the inexorable result of economic forces and laws.
The right policies — stronger social safety nets, progressive taxation and better regulation (especially of the financial sector), to name a few — can reverse these devastating trends.
To generate the political will that such reforms require, societies must confront policymakers’ inertia and inaction with the grim facts of inequality and its devastating effects on our children.
We can reduce childhood deprivation and increase equality of opportunity, thereby laying the groundwork for a more just and prosperous future — one that reflects our own avowed values. So why don’t we?
Of the harm that inequality inflicts on our economies, politics, and societies, the damage done to children demands special concern.
Whatever responsibility poor adults might bear for their lot in life — they might not have worked hard enough, saved enough or made good decisions — children’s circumstances are thrust upon them without any sort of choice.
Children, perhaps more than anyone, need the protection that rights afford — and the US should be providing the world with a shining example of what that means.
Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is University Professor at Columbia University.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.