Why do some children die young, and what do the living owe them?
A child born in one country is far likelier to die in early childhood than a child born in another. What do we owe the youngest, and who is to make good what a family cannot?
The picture
What the numbers show, read from the Data library each time the page opens.
How to read the chart above, and the words it uses (for under five).
How to read the data
The figure is how many children out of every thousand born alive die before their fifth birthday. A fall means more children are surviving the early years; it does not say why.
Key terms
Under-five mortality
The chance that a child born alive dies before turning five, per thousand births.
Live birth
A baby born showing any sign of life.
Child survival
The share of children who live through their early years.
Who has a stake
Each interest, then readings from the Catholic library and the Classics library that bear on it, oldest first. Choose a group to read.
To be born safely, to be fed, kept clean and warm, and to receive the care that lets them live to grow up.
The means to feed and tend their children, clean water and a home, and not to bury a child that care could have saved.
Medicines, clean places to work and the training to treat the youngest patients, and the trust of those who bring them.
A fair share of the cost of care and clean water, without waste or the loss of local say in how it is spent.
For discussion
What do the living owe the youngest of children, whoever their parents are and wherever they are born?
When a family cannot save its own child, how should the duty of richer families and richer countries be weighed against the local say of those who live there?
How should the interests of doctors and nurses, who need means and trust, be weighed against those of the donors and taxpayers who supply them?
