Greece has fallen behind in global rankings for children happiness, finding itself outside the top 20 according to UNICEF’s 2025 report.
The UNICEF’s 2025 ‘Report Card 19: Child Wellbeing in an Unpredictable World’, was published in May examining how children across 43 OECD and EU countries fared in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report considers mental wellbeing, physical health, and essential skills.
Greece ranked 24 overall among the most developed countries, ranking seventh in mental health, 27th in physical health and 35th for skills.
Cyprus was not included in the ranking due to lack of available data (but appeared in other data) and Australia wasn’t fully ranked because of missing data for life satisfaction.
Australia was 33rd for physical health and 20th for skills.
Based on the report, Greek children are being raised in environments that fall short in supporting their overall development and wellbeing.
This highlights deeper societal, political, and educational problems, along with difficulties within family.
The report looked at six indicators for changes in child well-being between 2018 and 2022 – life satisfaction, suicide, mortality, overweight, academic and social.
Australia and Cyprus have both seen a decrease in suicide and mortality, while Australia has seen a rise in overweight kids and Cyprus’s academic levels have fallen.
Greece has deteriorated in life satisfaction and seen more suicide but mortality has got better.
Another interesting piece of data from the report is that the number one cause for climate-related disruption to schools in Greece for 2024 was heatwaves, with 88,287 students affected.
Top 10 Countries for Child Wellbeing (UNICEF Report Card 2025)
1. Netherlands
2. Denmark
3. France
4. Portugal
5. Ireland
6. Switzerland
7. Spain
8. Croatia
9. Italy
10. Sweden
