Children’s wellbeing in world’s wealthiest countries took sharp turn for the worse in wake of COVID-19 pandemic - UNICEF

FLORENCE/NEW YORK, 14 May 2025 – Children in many of the world’s wealthiest countries saw marked declines in their academic performance, mental wellbeing, and physical health in the period since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to analysis published today by UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight.   
  
Report Card 19: Child Wellbeing in an Unpredictable World compares data from 2018 and 2022, offering a perspective on how the COVID-19 pandemic and global shutdowns affected children in 43 OECD and EU countries. Since the last comparable Report Card five years ago, the Netherlands and Denmark retained their rankings as the top two places to be a child, based on measures of mental wellbeing, physical health, and skills, followed by France.   

The report goes on to analyse data on children’s physical health, noting that levels of overweight increased substantially in 14 out of 43 countries with available data, continuing a long-term trend. On this indicator, Bulgaria is one of the worst performers, ranking 34th out of 41 countries. Almost one in three children in Bulgaria is overweight. The proportion of 29.2% is higher than the average for the countries in the study (27.8%) and represents a slight increase compared to 2018 (27.6%). 

"Around our school we have all kinds of shops and restaurants that offer fast food, junk food," - says a 14-year-old girl from Sofia - "at school they sell mainly doughy things - solettes, pasta snacks. And when you rush in between classes - you buy whatever is there. And they should offer fruit, juices." 
 

However, the report warns many countries experienced sharp declines in children’s academic skills following the pandemic – particularly foundational abilities such as reading and mathematics. School shutdowns of between three and 12 months forced many children to learn remotely and led to learning losses. The extent to which children are behind where they should be academically is estimated to be between seven months and one year, on average, the report says. Setbacks were most severe for children from disadvantaged families. In terms of academic skills, Bulgaria ranks last - only 3 other countries have a lower score – Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico. 
 
The report also raises concerns around mental health, pointing out that children’s life satisfaction suffered during this time, declining substantially in 14 of 32 countries with available data. Japan was the only country to see a marked improvement in this area. In Bulgaria - 71% of 15-year-olds expressed satisfaction with life, which is close to the average for other countries.  

"What I hear from my peers is that they are mentally overwhelmed.  A lot don't feel satisfied. I am not satisfied, maybe because I set high goals for myself and when I achieve them I set another goal," says a boy aged 18 from Stara Zagora. 

The aggregate data for Bulgaria shows that life satisfaction, obesity and academic skills of Bulgarian children have deteriorated compared to the previous Report 16.  A positive trend is the reduction in child mortality and the improvement in children's self-reported social skills. Bulgaria ranks 28th out of 36 countries in the overall ranking on the six indicators of child well-being. 

"The report clearly shows that even in high-income countries, children do not always get the opportunity to grow up healthy, educated and feeling supported. The concerning results for Bulgaria clearly point to the need for coherent and holistic action to improve the skills, physical and mental health, prevention and elimination of online and offline violence for all children, but especially for children from vulnerable social groups," - said Christina de Bruin, UNICEF Representative in Bulgaria.

Pointing to the pandemic’s impact on children, the report warns that hard-won progress in child wellbeing in wealthy countries is becoming increasingly vulnerable to global events and shocks, such as climate change.  The report calls on governments and stakeholders to take action in several policy areas to address declines in children’s wellbeing.     

Note to editors:   

Download the latest Report Card 19 (2025) and Report Card 16 (2020).   
Download photographs.  
  
Report Card 19: Child Wellbeing in an Unpredictable World revises Report Card 16, which analysed child wellbeing in OECD/EU countries up to 2018. Report Card 19 updates the picture to 2022, when the pandemic was coming to an end. The report provides data on three major dimensions of child wellbeing:  

• Mental wellbeing, which is represented by two sets of data – life satisfaction from OECD PISA 2022 and adolescent suicide from the WHO Mortality Database; 
• Physical health, which is represented by two sets of data – child mortality from UN IGME and overweight and obesity from NCD-RisC; 
• Skills, which is represented by two sets of data – academic proficiency and social skills, both from OEDC PISA 2022.