More Dutch children have a low-risk start, but gains are uneven

Children born in the Netherlands in 2021 were more likely than those born in 2007 to grow up without the family risk factors measured by Statistics Netherlands (CBS), though the improvement was uneven and the gap between families of different origins remained.

Among children with two parents of Dutch origin, 72.7% had none of the four factors during their first 1,000 days, compared with 71.5% of children born in 2007. For children with two parents of foreign origin, the share rose from 29% to 40.2%. Children with one Dutch-born and one foreign-born parent fell between the groups, at 62.4% in 2021, up from 59.3% in 2007.

The factors CBS examined were low household prosperity, a single-parent household, no paid work in the household, and parents receiving medication for mental health problems. The period covered runs from the year before a child’s birth until their second birthday. The agency says having fewer of these risks can support a good start in life; the figures describe family circumstances, not children’s later outcomes.

CBS also found that multiple risk factors became less common overall, but remained more prevalent among children with one or two parents of foreign origin. The improvement was reversed among families in the lowest prosperity group: the average number of risk factors rose from 0.95 for children born in 2007 to 1.01 for those born in 2021.

Within that lowest-prosperity group, the average increased most clearly for children with parents of Dutch origin, from 0.81 to 1.12. It also rose for children with parents of Indonesian origin, from 0.85 to 1.01, and Iranian origin, from 1.96 to 2.08. CBS attributes the worsening among Dutch- and Indonesian-origin families mainly to lower employment and more single-parent households; for Iranian-origin families, it points mainly to lower employment.