Publications

 

State of the World's Mothers Report 2007

Nepal. Mother Hemanti breastfeeds her 28- day-old baby while in a kangaroo care wrap. (Copyright: Michael Bisceglie, Save the Children US)A Mother’s Day Report Card: The Best— And Worst—Countries to Be a Mother

 

Expanded index now includes 18 additional industrialised countries

 

Sweden tops list, Niger ranks last,
Australia ranked 5th, up from 7th last year


Country comparisons

The Mothers’ Index presents individual country comparisons for poor countries that are especially startling when one considers the human suffering behind the statistics:

  • Over the course of her lifetime, 1 woman in 7 will die in pregnancy or childbirth in Angola, Malawi and Niger; the risk is 1 in 6 in Afghanistan and Sierra Leone.
  • A girl born in Angola, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leon, Zambia and Zimbabwe on average will live 45 years. Life expectancy for women is only 35 in Lesotho, 33 in Botswana, and for a girl born in Swaziland, only 30 years due to the sheer proportions of children who die before age five and the additional scourge of AIDS which is killing many women in their prime.
  • One child in four does not reach his or her fifth birthday in Afghanistan, Angola, Niger and Sierra Leone.
  • Fewer than 15 percent of births are attended by skilled health personnel in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Chad, Ethiopia and Nepal.
  • In Djibouti and Niger, a typical female has less than 3.5 years of schooling and fewer than half of all children are enrolled in primary school.
  • More than 60 percent of the population of Afghanistan and Papua New Guinea lack access to safe drinking water, and more than 70 percent lack access to safe water in Ethiopia and Somalia.

NOTE: The Mothers’ Index was restructured for 2007 and is based on improved indicators to rank countries more precisely relative to their level of development. As a result of these changes, Save the Children is now able to calculate rankings for 18 additional industrialised countries, including Italy, Spain and France. 

Key indicators

The status of mothers was compared in 140 countries based on the following indicators of women’s and children’s well-being:

  • Lifetime risk of maternal mortality
  • Percentage of women using modern contraception
  • Skilled attendant at delivery
  • Female life expectancy
  • Expected number of years of formal schooling for females
  • Ratio of estimated female-to-male earned income
  • Maternity leave benefits
    Participation of women in national government
  • Under-5 mortality rate
  • Percentage of children under age 5 moderately or severely underweight
  • School enrollment ratios
  • Ratio of girls to boys enrolled in primary school
  • Percentage of population with access to safe water.

The Mother’s Index

Top 10 Countries

  1. Sweden
  2. Iceland
  3. Norway
  4. New Zealand
  5. Australia
  6. Denmark
  7. Finland
  8. Belgium
  9. Spain
  10. Germany

Bottom 10 Countries

  1. Niger
  2. Sierra Leone
  3. Yemen
  4. Chad
  5. Guinea-Bissau
  6. Angola
  7. Eritrea
  8. Ethiopia
  9. Burkina Faso
  10. Djibouti

Link Arrow. Arrow (Copyright: International Save the Children Alliance)Read more about the State of the World's Mothers Report here

Link Arrow. Arrow (Copyright: International Save the Children Alliance)Download your copy of the Index and report here [Adobe PDF, 2147 Kb]