The Challenge for Children and Young People of Growing up Urban

This report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) illustrates the impact of living in an urban environment on child development. On average, urban children have better access to education, clean drinking water, and better outcomes compared to their rural peers—a product of the “urban advantage,” wherein households have better incomes and access to infrastructure. However, as the analysis in this report illuminates, urban children do not uniformly experience this advantage. Environmental health hazards, growing population density, poverty, and insecure housing are among the factors that leave the poorest urban children at a disadvantage compared to their wealthier counterparts. To dig deeper into this phenomenon, this report explores 10 indicators of child wellbeing: water, sanitation, birth attendants, birth registration, immunization, education, knowledge of HIV among women, knowledge of HIV among men, stunting, and mortality. Although UNICEF’s analysis shows that there is, on average, an urban advantage across these 10 indicators, the size of these advantages varies across indicators. In addition, after controlling for wealth, much of the urban advantage disappears. The report recommends scaling up urban programs for adolescents and children to combat inequities within urban populations, emphasizing that better funding and data collection are needed for real improvements in the lives and wellbeing of urban children.