This paper discusses the possible pathways between macroeconomic change and child welfare and develops a typology of the risks that children may face at different stages of the lifecycle. Adopting a multi-dimensional view of child well-being, trends in both economic measures of poverty, based on incomes and expenditures, and selected capability-based indicators; reflecting the health and survival, and the education and personal development of children and their social inclusion/exclusion; are then examined. Not all the news is bad but the data show that the human cost of economic transition has been high and children, far from being protected from its impact, have been amongst those who have suffered the most.