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The Urban
Disadvantage
Save the Children’s 16th annual State of the World’s
Mothers report focuses on our rapidly urbanizing
world and the poorest mothers and children who
must struggle to survive despite overall urban
progress.
Every day, 17,000 children die before reaching their
fifth birthday. Increasingly, these preventable deaths
are occurring in city slums, where overcrowding
and poor sanitation exist alongside skyscrapers and
shopping malls. Lifesaving health care may be only
a stone’s throw away, but the poorest mothers and
children often cannot get the care they need.
This report presents the latest and most extensive
analysis to date of health disparities between rich
and poor in cities. It finds that in most developing
countries, the poorest urban children are at least
twice as likely to die as the richest urban children.
In some countries, they are 3 to 5 – or even more –
times as likely to die.
The annual Mothers’ Index uses the latest data
on women’s health, children’s health, educational
attainment, economic well-being and female political
participation to rank 179 countries and show where
mothers and children fare best and where they face
the greatest hardships.
Manila, Philippines