Author says kids better off in India

The Herald reports:

The poorest Kiwi children are now no better off than some children in the slums of India, a leading author says.

Professor Jonathan Boston, co-author of Child Poverty in New Zealand, said at the book’s launch in Auckland last night that he saw worse poverty in some Kiwi families than he saw when he spent a month late last year in Delhi slums where his wife, Dr Mary Hutchinson, worked as a volunteer doctor for a Christian charity.

“The Indian Government feeds every primary school child lunch every day for 130 million children,” he said.

“We saw very few seriously malnourished children in the slums of Delhi.

With respect to Professor Boston, but that is a ridiculous claim.

The under 5 mortality rate in India is 56/1000.  In NZ it is 6.

UPDATE: I understand that Professor Boston thinks his comments have been misrepresented and that he wasn’t saying (or intending to say) that some Kiwis kids are worse off than in India.