Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Inequalities in Children's Well-Being: International Comparative Perspectives

(Family and Child Policy)

The theme of this panel is the extent to which inequalities in children’s well-being within and between countries can be understood in terms of individual and national variations in economic and social factors. This is a theme with important implications for policymakers and others concerned with children’s quality of life. The three papers draw on two of the most extensive international studies of children’s lives and well-being: (a) the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children study which includes children aged around 11, 13 and 15 in 43 European and North American countries; and (b) the Children’s Worlds study which includes children aged around 8, 10 and 12 in 16 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. Within the common theme of understanding inequalities in children’s well-being, the papers contain considerable diversity. First, there is substantial geographical and cultural diversity in the countries included in the analysis, with five continents being represented. Second, the two data sources in combination represent a wide age range in childhood and adolescence from 8 to 15 years old. Third, across the three papers, a variety of well-being concepts and measures are considered, including children’s health status, health behaviours, daily activities, their evaluations of specific aspects of their lives and their overall subjective well-being. Fourth, a number of different socio-economic factors – family affluence, children’s individual experiences of material deprivation, and gender inequalities – are considered as potential contributors to inequalities in children’s well-being. Paper 1 explores the extent to which variations in family affluence within countries are linked with inequalities in a range of child health and well-being indicators and how this relationship has changed over the past decade or so, and also identifies important gender differences in these indicators. Paper 2 also focuses on the links between economic factors and child well-being, but incorporates a measure of children’s material deprivation and complements Paper 1 by focusing on a younger age group and on a wider range of countries and contexts. Paper 3 extends the theme of gender differences identified in Paper 1, exploring the extent to which indicators of societal gender inequality are associated with levels of, and gender differences in, children’s subjective well-being and their daily activities. The overall purpose of the panel papers is a practical one – to seek to understand some of the sources of inequalities in children’s well-being and to identify key messages that can inform the development of policies, nationally and globally, to tackle childhood inequalities and improve the quality of children’s lives.