Abstract
This study explores similarities and differences in the lives of 12 year-old children from 11 diverse countries around the world – Algeria, Brazil, Chile, England, Israel, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Uganda, and USA – by focusing on their own evaluations of their lives in four main categories: the context of children’s lives, time use, satisfaction with life and particular aspects of life. Furthermore, potential cross-cultural methodological and analytical issues are raised, and their implications for cross-national research comparisons are discussed. The results are obtained from the international Children’s Worlds (ISCWeB) world-wide research survey on children’s subjective well-being. Our findings reveal considerable variations between countries in the context of children’s lives, in the ways that they spend their time and in their satisfaction and evaluations of aspects in their lives. Our analysis also suggests potential cultural differences in response patterns in some of the countries. Ways to overcome these issues are detailed and demonstrated along with the great potential of comparative research of children’s subjective well-being.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Note that these comparisons do not include Spain as not all of these questions were asked in the Spanish survey.
References
Andresen, S., Hurrelmann, K., & Schneekloth, U. (2012). Care and freedom: theoretical and empirical aspects of children’s well-being in Germany. Child Indicators Research, 5(3), 437–448. doi:10.1007/s12187-012-9154-6.
Angelini, V., Cavapozzi, D., Corazzini, L., & Paccagnella, O. (2013). Do Danes and Italians rate life satisfaction in the same Way? using vignettes to correct for individual-specific scale biases. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics. doi:10.1111/obes.12039.
Ben-Arieh, A. (2008). The child indicators movement: past, present, and future. Child Indicators Research, 1, 3–16. doi:10.1007/s12187-007-9003-1.
Ben-Arieh, A. (2012). How do we measure and monitor the “state of our children”?: revisiting the topic in honor of Sheila B. Kamerman. Children and Youth Services Review, 34, 569–575. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2011.10.008.
Ben-Arieh, A., & Ofir, A. (2002). Opinion, dialogue, review time for (more) time-use studies: studying the daily activities of children. Childhood, 9, 225–248. doi:10.1177/0907568202009002805.
Bourke, L., & Geldens, P. M. (2007). Subjective wellbeing and its meaning for young people in a rural Australian center. Social Indicators Research, 82(1), 165–187. doi:10.1007/s11205-006-9031-0.
Bradshaw, J., & Richardson, D. (2009). An index of child well-being in Europe. Child Indicators Research, 2, 319–351. doi:10.1007/s12187-009-9037-7.
Bradshaw, J., Keung, A., Rees, G., & Goswami, H. (2011). Children’s subjective well-being: international comparative perspectives. Children and Youth Services Review, 33, 548–556. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2010.05.010.
Bradshaw, J., Martorano, B., Natali, L., & de Neubourg, C. (2013). Children’s subjective well-being in rich countries, office of research working paper, 2013–03. Florence: UNICEF Office of Research.
Byrne, B. M., & Campbell, T. L. (1999). Cross-cultural comparisons and the presumption of equivalent measurement and theoretical structure: a look beneath the surface. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 30, 555–574. doi:10.1177/0022022199030005001.
Camfield, L., Streuli, N., & Woodhead, M. (2010). Children’s well-being in developing countries: a conceptual and methodological review. European Journal of Development Research, 22(3), 398–416. doi:10.1057/ejdr.2010.11.
Campbell, A., Converse, P. E., & Rogers, W. L. (1976). The quality of American life: perceptions, evaluations, and satisfactions. New York: Russell Sage.
Casas, F. (1997). Children’s rights and children’s quality of life: conceptual and practical issues. Social Indicators Research, 42, 283–298. doi:10.1023/A:1006836909395.
Casas, F. (2011). Subjective social indicators and child and adolescent well-being. Child Indicators Research, 4, 555–575. doi:10.1007/s12187-010-9093-z.
Casas, F., Baltatescu, S., Bertran, I., Gonzalez, M., & Hatos, A. (2012). School satisfaction among adolescents: testing different indicators for its measurement and its relationship with overall life satisfaction and subjective well-being in Romania and Spain. Social Indicators Research, 111, 665–681. doi:10.1007/s11205-012-0025-9.
Chaplin, L. N. (2009). Please may I have a bike? better yet, may I have a hug? an examination of children’s and adolescents’ happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 10(5), 541–562. doi:10.1007/s10902-008-9108-3.
Costanza, R., et al. (2007). Quality of life: an approach integrating opportunities, human needs, and subjective well-being. Ecological Economics, 61, 267–276. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2006.02.023.
Crivello, G., Camfield, L., & Woodhead, M. (2009). How can children tell us about their wellbeing? exploring the potential of participatory research approaches within young lives. Social Indicators Research, 90(1), 51–72. doi:10.1007/s11205-008-9312-x.
Cummins, R. A. (1998). The second approximation to an international standard for life satisfaction. Social Indicators Research, 43, 307–334. doi:10.1023/A:1006831107052.
Cummins, R. A. (2000). Objective and subjective quality of life: an interactive model. Social Indicators Research, 52, 55–72. doi:10.1023/A:1007027822521.
Currie, C., & others. (2012). Social determinants of health and well-being among young people. World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe Copenhagen. Retrieved from http://www.hbsc.unito.it/it/images/pdf/hbsc/prelims-part1.pdf
Deaton, A. (2008). Income, health and wellbeing around the world: evidence from the Gallup world poll. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22, 53–72. doi:10.1257/jep.22.2.53.
Dex, S., & Hollingworth, K. (2012). Children’s and young people’s voices on their wellbeing. Childhood Well-Being Research Centre, Working Paper, 16. Retrieved from http://www.cwrc.ac.uk/projects/documents/FINAL_Dex__September_2012__Report_on_childrens_voices_on_wellbeing_Working_Paper_No_14.pdf
Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: the science of happiness and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist, 55, 34–43. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.34.
Diener, E., & Sue, E. M. (2000). Measuring subjective well-being to compare the quality of life of cultures. In E. Diener & E. M. Sue (Eds.), Cultural and subjective well-being (pp. 3–12). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Diener, E., Diener, M., & Diener, C. (1995). Factors predicting the subjective well-being of nations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 851–864. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.69.5.851.
Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Lucas, E. L. (2003). Personality, culture, and subjective well-being: emotional and cognitive evaluations of life. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 403–425. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.54.101601.145056.
Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Lucas, E. L. (2011). Subjective well-being: the science of happiness and life satisfaction. In S. J. Lopez & C. R. Snyder (Eds.), Positive psychology (pp. 187–194). New York: Oxford University Press.
Dinisman, T., Montserrat, C., & Casas, F. (2012). The subjective well-being of Spanish adolescents: variations according to different living arrangements. Children and Youth Services Review, 34(12), 2374–2380.
Fattore, T., Mason, J., & Watson, E. (2007). Children’s conceptualisation(s) of their well-being. Social Indicators Research, 80(1), 5–29. doi:10.1007/s11205-006-9019-9.
Fattore, T., Mason, J., & Watson, E. (2009). When children are asked about their well-being: towards a framework for guiding policy. Child Indicators Research, 2(1), 57–77. doi:10.1007/s12187-008-9025-3.
Gabhainn, S. N., & Sixsmith, J. (2005). Children’s understandings of well-being. Dublin: National Children’s Office, Department of Health. Retrieved from http://most.ie/webreports/Fatima%20reports/health%20and%20well%20being/s_Understanding_of_Well_Being.pdf.
Gilman, R., & Huebner, S. (2003). A review of life satisfaction research with children and adolescents. School Psychology Quarterly, 18, 192–205. doi:10.1521/scpq.18.2.192.21858.
Graham, C. (2009). Happiness around the world: the paradox of happy peasants and miserable millionaires. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Helliwell, J. F., Barrington-Leigh, C. P., Harris, A., & Huang, H. (2009). International evidence on the social context of well-being. National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14720
Huebner, E. S. (1991). Initial development of the student’s life satisfaction scale. School Psychology International, 12, 231–240. doi:10.1177/0143034391123010.
Hurrelmann, K., & Andresen, S. (2010). Children in Germany 2010: second world vision Kinderstudie. Friedrichsdorf: World Vision.
Kapteyn, A., Smith, J .P., van Soest, A. (2009). Comparing Life Satisfaction (RAND Working Paper No. WR-623-1. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1289423 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1289423
Keyes, C. L. M., Shmotkin, D., & Ryff, C. D. (2002). Optimizing well-being: The empirical encounter of two traditions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 1007–1022. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.82.6.1007.
Kim, H., Schimmack, U., & Oishi, S. (2012). Cultural differences in self- and other-evaluations and well-being: a study of European and Asian Canadians. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 856–873. doi:10.1037/a0026803.
Moore, K. A., & Theokas, C. (2008). Conceptualizing a monitoring system for indicators in middle childhood. Child Indicators Research, 1, 109–128. doi:10.1007/s12187-008-9011-9.
OECD. (2013). PISA 2012 Results: Ready to learn – Students’ engagement, drive and self-beliefs (Volume III). OECD Publishing. Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264201170-en
Qvortrup, J. (1997). A voice for children in statistical and social accounting: a plea for children’s right to be heard. In A. James & A. Prout (Eds.), Constructing and reconstructing childhood: contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood (pp. 83–104). London: Routledge.
Rees, G., Goswami, H., & Bradshaw, J. (2010). Developing an index of children’s subjective well-being in England. London: The Children’s Society. Retrieved from: http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/tcs/research_docs/Developing%20an%20Index%20of%20Children%27s%20Subjective%20Well-being%20in%20England.pdf.
Rees, G., Goswami, H., Pople, L., Bradshaw, J., Keung, A., & Main, G. (2013). The good childhood report 2013. London: The Children’s Society. Retrieved from: http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/tcs/good_childhood_report_2013_final.pdf.
Seligson, J. L., Huebner, E. S., & Valois, R. F. (2003). Preliminary validation of the Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS). Social Indicators Research, 61, 121–145. doi:10.1023/A:1021326822957.
The Children’s Society. (2006). The good childhood: a question for our times. London: The Children’s Society.
Thoilliez, B. (2011). How to grow up happy: an exploratory study on the meaning of happiness from children’s voices. Child Indicators Research, 4(2), 323–351. doi:10.1007/s12187-011-9107-5.
Tomyn, A. J., & Cummins, R. A. (2011). The subjective wellbeing of high-school students: validating the Personal Wellbeing Index—school children. Social Indicators Research, 101, 405–418. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.82.6.1007.
UNICEF Office of Research. (2007). Child poverty in perspective: an overview of child well-being in rich countries, Innocenti report card 7. Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre. Retrieved from: http://www.unicef-irc.org/media-centre/press-kit/reportcard7/.
UNICEF Office of Research. (2013). Child well-being in rich countries: a comparative overview, innocenti report card 11. Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre. Retrieved from: http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/683.
UNICEF Spain. (2012). Children’s well‐being from their own point of view. What affects the children’s wellbeing in the first year of Compulsory Secondary Education in Spain? Madrid: UNICEF Spain.
United Nations General Assembly. (1989). Convention on the rights of the child. New York: Author. Retrieved from: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm.
Uusitalo-Malmivaara, L. (2012). Global and school-related happiness in Finnish children. Journal of Happiness Studies, 13(4), 601–619. doi:10.1007/s10902-011-9282-6.
Van Soest, A., Delaney, L., Harmon, C., Kapteyn, A., & Smith, J. P. (2011). Validating the use of anchoring vignettes for the correction of response scale differences in subjective questions. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society), 174(3), 575–595.
Veenhoven, R. (2009). Comparability of happiness across nations. Journal of Happiness Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum on Subjective Well-Being, 211–234. Retrieved from: http://hdl.handle.net/1765/14883
Wirtz, D., Chiu, C., Diener, E., & Oishi, S. (2009). What constitutes a good life? Cultural differences in the role of positive and negative affect in subjective well-being. Journal of Personality, 77, 1167–1195. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2009.00578.x.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rees, G., Dinisman, T. Comparing Children’s Experiences and Evaluations of Their Lives in 11 Different Countries. Child Ind Res 8, 5–31 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-014-9291-1
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-014-9291-1