Children's wellbeing in Britain has been the subject of impassioned debate since a 2007 UNICEF report put the UK at the bottom of a list of 21 rich countries for wellbeing.

In this report we use data from the 2005 Families and Children Study (FACS) to look at England, Scotland and Wales and compare income and wellbeing indicators in all three countries.

Adjusted incomes (for what families can buy with it) are slightly smaller for poorer families and child poverty is greater in England than in Scotland and Wales, but England fares better than its smaller neighbours when it comes to key wellbeing indicators such as health, housing and child behaviour.

We argue that when comparing different countries on the British mainland, income by itself is not the best measure of children's wellbeing.