Sheila B. Kamerman’s research while affiliated with Fordham University and other places

A new social policy tool emerged a little more than a decade in Latin America and in Asia that brought immediate relief in the form of cash to poor families with children and conditioned the benefits on behavioral changes that would affect the long-term well-being of beneficiary households. By conditioning benefits on school attendance and obtaining health-care and social support services, many countries especially those in Latin America were able to reverse intergenerational and intractable poverty rates. These programs, conditional cash transfers (CCTs), spread quickly throughout Latin America but have also become popular in other parts of the world. This paper looks at how CCTs have been used as a child policy strategy in Asia, summarizing the forms it has taken and the effectiveness of the programs in six Asian countries, and ends with a discussion of lessons learned from these experiences.

Child development and child well-being are major concerns in many countries, both developed and developing, and are the subject of ongoing concern at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) as well as the European Union (EU) and the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). These concerns have led to a search for policies affecting child and family well-being designed to reduce or alleviate child poverty, deprivation, vulnerability and the risk factors that can trigger a lifelong cycle of disadvantage. The lack of systematic and comparative data on policies affecting children in developing countries and related outcome measures has repeatedly been noted as an obstacle in the further development of policies to promote child well-being (UNICEF, 1998, 2008; Kamerman and Gatenio Gabel, 2007; Save the Children UK, 2008). A prior effort focused on the OECD countries (Kamerman et al, 2003). This chapter focuses primarily on developing countries and summarises the availability of data on both policies and outcomes measuring child well-being. We begin with a brief discussion of the history, definition and purposes of childhood social indicators in the US and internationally. Following this we present a preliminary child policy paradigm for developing countries. We use this paradigm to organise our explorations of global databases on child policies and policy outcomes. We then assess the strengths and weaknesses of available data for comparative analysis of child policies and outcomes. Finally we conclude with a brief description of current challenges and future needs for international indicators of child-conditioned policies and outcomes. The purpose of this overall effort is to better understand the wellbeing of children in developing countries and the effects of social policies in these countries on reducing income poverty and improving child well-being. The interest in children's well-being indicators stems, in part, from a movement towards accountability-based public policy that required more accurate measures of the conditions children face and the outcomes of various programmes designed to address those conditions (Ben-Arieh and Frones, 2007). Rapid changes in family life also prompted an increased demand from child development professionals, social scientists and the public for a better picture of children's well-being.

Child poverty is a central and present part of global life, with hundreds of millions of children around the world enduring tremendous suffering and deprivation of their most basic needs. Despite its long history, research on poverty and development has only relatively recently examined the issue of child poverty as a distinct topic of concern. This book brings together theoretical, methodological and policy-relevant contributions by leading researchers on international child poverty. With a preface from Sir Richard Jolly, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, it examines how child poverty and well-being are now conceptualized, defined and measured, and presents regional and national level portraits of child poverty around the world, in rich, middle income and poor countries. The book's ultimate objective is to promote and influence policy, action and the research agenda to address one of the world's great ongoing tragedies: child poverty, marginalization and inequality.

Indicators of child well being grew exponentially in the last four decades in both industrialized and developing countries. While efforts continue to develop comparative indicators of child well-being across countries, far less attention is focused on generating organized and comparative data on policies affecting children in developing countries and related outcome measures. This paper summarizes the history and trends in measuring child well-being and policies and examines the availability of data to create a global database on child policies and policy outcomes. Numerous efforts are currently underway to develop composite indicators of child well-being at all geographic levels but these indicators are unlikely to be tied to existing and emerging child policies. A paradigm for categorizing child policies and outcome measures across countries is offered. The lack of comparative data on policies affecting children in developing countries and outcomes is seen as an obstacle to furthering the development of policies that promote child well-being.

This book tackles public policies that are targeted at young children and their families. In particular, it discusses those that concern parenting and employment policies. Parental leave policies incorporate responses to multiple concerns, including economic support of families with young children; protection of maternal and child health, pregnancy, and childbirth; promotion of maternal employment; gender equality in the labour market and home; support for paternal time with children; involvement of parents in infants' care; and efforts to ensure that babies start their growth and development in decent circumstances. Debates about the importance of the first few years of life have been ongoing for several years, however it was only recently that policies targeted at young children and their families become an important focus of public policy. This increasing focus on the importance of childcare led to the policy interests in leave and early childhood education and care, driven by employment and gender equality goals. It has also led to the increasing interest in the reconciliation of work and family life or ‘work-life balance’. It is this context of the importance of the early years for many policy fields that forms the focus of this book. It looks at the developments in fifteen advanced industrialised countries and the EU with regard to parental leave policies. The focus is on the formation of policy and not on its outcomes. In particular, the book looks at the ‘what’, ‘why’, ‘who’, ‘when’, and ‘how’ of leave policies. It also discusses the major components of these policies as well as the diverse forms they take. It also tackles the policy choices that have been made, the influential actors in policy formation, the major policy changes, and the policy decisions that have been made. This concluding chapter discusses the policy-making process, the history of leave policies, and the politics of parental leave policies. In particular, it retraces maternal and infant health; fertility and population policies; labour market trends and policies; gender equality; political factors including political actors and institutions; social actors; governance; and the international influence of leave policies.