India ranks 113 of 176 countries on children's wellbeing

India ranks 113 in 176 countries on the wellbeing of children, according to the End of Childhood Index.  The country stood at 116 among 172 countries in 2018.  

The index is part of Changing Lives in Our Lifetime - Global Childhood Report, 2019 and was released by Save the Children, a non-profit, on May 28, 2019.

Countries are evaluated on eight parameters on the wellbeing of those up to 19 years of age — child mortality, malnutrition, lack of education, child labour, early marriage, adolescent birth, displacement by conflict and child homicide.

In its neighbourhood, India ranked fourth, behind Bhutan (98), Sri Lanka (56) and China (36).

Singapore tops the list and eight European countries figure among the top 10. South Korea stands at the 10^th position and at the bottom are African countries performing poorly on all indicators.     

However, India has improved significantly on child mortality from 39 deaths per 1000 live births in 2017. This is still way worse than the goal of 25 or fewer deaths set my Millennium Development Goals.  More than 38 per cent Indian children are stunted. In China this number is 8.1 per cent, Sri Lanka (17.3 per cent) and Bhutan (33.6 per cent). 

Every fifth Indian child is out of school at primary and secondary levels and more than 11 per cent in the 5-17 age groups are child labourers.

Globally, the rate of child marriage has reduced by 25 per cent in 2019. In South Asia, India has performed significantly well where child marriage is down 51 per cent since 2000 and 63 percent since 1990. There are three million fewer teen births now than 2000 worldwide. India has successfully cut the teenage birth rate by 63 per cent since 2000 and 75 per cent since 1990. This results in nearly two million fewer teen births in the country.

Indian progress alone accounts for almost three quarters of decline in teen births worldwide. This means now in India more girls manage to stay in school and have better access to sexual and reproductive health services. This indicates a better socio-economic progress in the country. 

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