Children’s wellbeing in world’s wealthiest countries took sharp turn for the worse in wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
DUBLIN/FLORENCE/NEW YORK, 14 May 2025 – Irish teenagers are among the least happy in high-income countries, despite leading the world in academic skills, according to a new UNICEF report released today.
Report Card 19: Child Wellbeing at Risk in an Unpredictable World, published by UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight, compares the wellbeing of children across 43 OECD and EU countries. While Ireland ranks first for academic performance, it falls to 24th for adolescent mental wellbeing — placing it in the bottom half globally.
The findings reveal that nearly one in three 15-year-olds in Ireland report low life satisfaction. The country’s youth suicide rate stands at 6.4 per 100,000 — above the international average.
“These findings are stark,” said Peter Power, Executive Director of UNICEF Ireland. “Ireland’s teens are succeeding in school, but struggling in life. We must match our investment in academic achievement with the same urgency for mental and emotional wellbeing.”
The report analyses changes from 2018 to 2022, a period marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, school closures, and widespread social isolation. Across 26 countries with available data, life satisfaction among adolescents declined in 22. School shutdowns — lasting from three to 12 months — disconnected young people from peers, teachers, and critical support systems.
The report also highlights physical health risks. In Ireland, more than one in four children and adolescents (25.7%) are overweight or obese. When combined with constant exposure to unrealistic online body standards, the mental and physical health pressures on young people are intensifying.
UNICEF Ireland is urging the government to take targeted actions to protect child wellbeing, including:
- Increasing investment in in-school mental health services, particularly in disadvantaged areas, and drastically reducing waiting times for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).
- Improving physical health by enforcing strict nutritional standards for school meals to ensure all children, especially in disadvantaged areas, have access to nutritious, balanced meals; regulation of the marketing of unhealthy foods to children, in line with public health priorities, must also be prioritised.
- Strengthening digital resilience and body image education within the Junior Cycle curriculum, ensuring these topics are comprehensively delivered to address the harmful mental health effects of online pressures and unrealistic beauty standards.
- Engaging children and young people in conversations about their experiences with mobile phones and digital technology, fostering digital literacy and awareness of their rights in the online space. This includes working with them to identify and address the challenges they face online, and developing solutions that promote their mental health and overall wellbeing
“The pandemic has deepened existing inequalities, setting a troubling precedent for children’s wellbeing—particularly among those from disadvantaged and marginalised backgrounds,” said Aibhlin O’Leary, Head of Advocacy at UNICEF Ireland. “To respond meaningfully, we need a unified, child-centred strategy that tackles these disparities head-on and supports every child, at every stage of their development.”
UNICEF warns that the aftershocks of the pandemic, combined with economic pressures and digital harm, are reversing decades of progress in child wellbeing. Governments are urged to centre children in recovery plans and ensure young people have a voice in shaping their futures.
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; and Skills, which is represented by two sets of data – academic proficiency and social skills, both from OEDC PISA 2022.
For further information, please contact:
Vivienne Parry, UNICEF Ireland, vivienne@unicef.ie +353 87 717 5344
Brian Keeley, UNICEF Innocenti, bkeeley@unicef.org
Adam Cathro, UNICEF Innocenti, acathro@unicef.org
Nadia Samie-Jacobs, UNICEF, New York, +1 845 760 2615, nsamie@unicef.org
About UNICEF
UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children, works to protect the rights of every child, everywhere, especially the most disadvantaged children and in the toughest places to reach. Across more than 190 countries and territories, we do whatever it takes to help children survive, thrive, and fulfil their potential.
For more information about UNICEF and its work, visit: http://www.unicef.org/
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About UNICEF Innocenti
UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight produces independent, rigorous research and foresight to tackle the greatest challenges affecting children and provide pathways for leaders and advocates to shape the future and uphold the rights of every child.
