A timely study on child well-being in 29 rich countries, launched by UNICEF’s Office of Research, finds that the Netherlands and four Nordic countries – Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – again sit at the top of a child well-being table; whilst Lithuania, Latvia and Romania are placed in the bottom of the table, IPN reports.

According to a press release from UNICEF Moldova, the study does not find a strong relationship between per capita GDP and overall child well-being. For instance, Slovenia ranks higher than Canada, the Czech Republic higher than Austria, and Portugal higher than the United States.

The research says that the quality of children’s lives is high in many spheres. As regards behavior and risks for example, only 8% of the children aged between 11 and 15 said they smoke cigarettes at least once a week, 15% said they abused alcohol at least twice in their life, while 99% of the girls said they did not remain pregnant while teens. Instead, there are shortcomings in other areas, such as physical activities. The U.S. and Ireland are the only countries where more than 25% of the children said they do sports at least one hour a day.

According to the report, child poverty in the 29 nations of the industrialized world is not inevitable, but policy susceptible – and some countries are doing much better than others at protecting their most vulnerable children. Moldova has real chances of being among the countries with high child well-being indicators, if it increases investments in social policies and the social protection system, as well as in economy, business environment, and infrastructure.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, about 20% of Moldova’s children in 2011 lived at the poverty line. The highest poverty rate is witnessed in families with three or more children. 85% of the poor children live in rural areas.