About the Changing Childhood Project

Motivation

We are living through an era of rapid and far-reaching transformation. As the world has changed — becoming more digital, more globalized, and more diverse — childhood is changing with it. The Changing Childhood Project — a collaboration of UNICEF and Gallup — was created to explore these shifts, and to better understand what it means to be a child in the 21st century. The project seeks to answer two questions: What is it like growing up today? And how do young people see the world differently? To answer these questions, we wanted to hear from children and young people themselves. Comparing the experiences and views of young versus older people offers a powerful lens to explore how childhood is changing, and where generations diverge or converge. The ultimate goal of the project is to centre young people — their experiences and perspectives — in the work of improving life for all children, today and into the future.

The microsite

This microsite was commissioned by UNICEF to enable people from around the world, especially children and young people, to engage with the Project's questions and explore its findings. We hope you enjoy it! The microsite was developed by the design firm CLEVER°FRANKE. No data about users are collected through this microsite.

Results presented in this microsite draw directly from the survey data outlined below. References to "young people" refer to the youngest age cohort in both surveys: those aged 15–24. All references to an overall figure or average — e.g., “on average” or “an average of”— refer to the survey results for a given question for the median country across all countries included in the survey. Similarly, the “average” for a given country income group is derived from survey results from the median country within that grouping.

The surveys

To explore the Project's questions and themes, UNICEF and Gallup have partnered on two multi-generational, international surveys.

Microstories marked “NEW” reflect data drawn from UNICEF’s work with the latest Gallup World Poll. All others are based on data drawn from the 2021 UNICEF-Gallup survey.

2021 UNICEF-Gallup survey

For the first phase of Changing Childhood Project, UNICEF and Gallup designed a bespoke survey implemented in 21 countries around the world. Drawing on its expertise from carrying out its annual World Poll, Gallup surveyed representative samples of at least 1,000 people in each country (1,500 in India). In each country, the sample was divided into two age cohorts: 15- to 24-year-olds (aligned with the United Nations' definition of youth), and those aged 40 years and older. Surveys were conducted between February and June 2021. All respondents were reached by phone. Developed with the assistance of a range of experts, the survey instrument includes questions that had been tested in other polls, as well as new ones developed specifically for the Changing Childhood Project.

Given the size of the country samples, and the division of the sample into two age cohorts, most of the results derived from this survey data have a margin of error of approximately +/- 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Margins of error will be larger for smaller subgroups within a population. More information on how to interpret the results can be found on the methodology page here.

UNICEF + the Gallup World Poll

For the second phase of the Changing Childhood Project, UNICEF partnered with Gallup in its latest World Poll. We put five of the original 32 Changing Childhood Project questions back into the field in 2022-2023 – this time in 55 countries (the 21 original countries along with 34 additional ones). The questions focus on four areas: the climate crisis, information sources, trust, and identity. All samples are probability-based and nationally representative, with sample sizes of approximately 1,000 per country of those aged 15+. The coverage area is the entire country, including rural areas, and the sampling frame represents the entire civilian, non-institutionalized population.

Given the size of the country samples, most of the results presented in the microsite have a margin of error of approximately ±4 percentage points at the 95 per cent confidence level. Margins of error are larger for smaller subgroups within a population. For the youth cohort, the median margin of error for the 15–24-year-old cohort across all 55 countries is +-/7.6 per cent. For further information on survey sampling or margins of error, please see the Gallup World Poll methodology summary here or contact us at the email address below.

Learn more

A more thorough exploration of the Project's findings can be found in the Project's reports linked on this page. Users who wish to dig further are encouraged to review the questionnaires, methodologies, full microdata and codebooks – also available on this page. We would love to hear what you discover from your own analyses. If you have questions or would like to tell us how you are using the Project, please email us at Changing-Childhood@unicef.org.

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