Monitoring Colombia's Children Wellbeing

Abstract

In this article a composite indicator is built, named the Children's Deprivation Index (CDI), which attempts to verify the access to a set of key goods, services and conditions that have a positive effect on children's well-being, and informs on the compliance with their rights, as stated on the International Children's Rights Convention and the National Constitution. The CDI is the result of aggregating 14 partial indicators in 7 dimensions, using the principal component analysis as weighting methodology. The main results show that in the national context the country's capital, Bogotá is the territorial unit with the best performance in offering living conditions for children. Also, the aspects most lacking in childhood are concentrated in the departments on the country's Pacific Coast (Cauca, Chocó, Nariño), and the Atlantic Coast (La Guajira, Magdalena, Córdoba, Cesar, Sucre).

Note: Downloadable document is in Spanish.

Keywords: child well-being, children's rights, child development, composite indicators, principal component analysis, Colombia

JEL Classification: H75, I38