The Association of Childhood Factors with Children’s Subjective Well-Being and Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties at 11 years old

Gwyther Rees ()
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Gwyther Rees: Cardiff University

Child Indicators Research, 2018, vol. 11, issue 4, No 2, 1107-1129

Abstract: Abstract Studies using cross-sectional data have found that factors such as family socio-economic status, family structure and parental well-being have relatively weak associations with children’s subjective well-being. However there is a lack of longitudinal research exploring whether early childhood circumstances, and the cumulative effect of these kinds of factors over time, exert a stronger influence. This article uses data from a longitudinal representative sample of over 13,000 children in the UK to examine the associations between family and socio-economic factors from the age of nine months to 11 years old and children’s subjective well-being at the age of 11. The analysis finds that family and socio-economic factors in early and middle childhood only explain small amounts of the variation in children’s subjective well-being. A parallel analysis finds that the same factors can explain much more of the variation in children’s emotional and behaviour difficulties. These findings strengthen existing cross-sectional evidence on the lack of substantial socio-economic variation in children’s subjective well-being and provide further the support for the distinction between correlates of positive and negative indicators of child well-being.

Keywords: Subjective well-being; Emotional and behaviour difficulties; Early childhood; Longitudinal studies; Socio-economic variations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:chinre:v:11:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s12187-017-9479-2

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DOI: 10.1007/s12187-017-9479-2

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