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The authors in this volume utilize a common analytical framework to evaluate how economic, family structure, and public policy changes affected the well-being of children in the industrialized countries in the West and the East from the end of the Second World War to the mid-1990s. Throughout the industrialized world, the living standards and social well-being of children improved remarkably over these five decades. But the quarter-century 'golden age' that followed the Second World War gave way to a period of stagnation after the early 1970s. Many of the negative developments of the past two decades could not have been easily prevented because of the profound structural changes that have affected all industrialized economies and the profound political changes that have affected the former Soviet Bloc. Nonetheless, adverse or neglectful social policies share some of the blame for the recent unfavourable changes in child well-being. The evidence presented suggests that, given current economic prospects and family structures, further weakening of social policies targeted at children could erode much of the progress of the past fifty years.