Better Safe than Sorry. Does Agency Moderate the Relevance of Safety Perceptions for the Subjective Well-Being of Young Children?

Leonie C. Steckermeier ()
Additional contact information
Leonie C. Steckermeier: Otto-von-Guericke University

Child Indicators Research, 2019, vol. 12, issue 1, No 3, 29-48

Abstract: Abstract This article explores the subjective well-being (SWB) of eight-year-old children in relation to two aspects important to young people’s lives: perceptions of safety and agency. Research has shown that safety perceptions among children are positively correlated with SWB. Building on the capabilities approach, this paper argues that not only is the achieved functioning of being safe important to well-being, but so are substantive opportunities to decide whether or how to achieve that functioning (agency). As young children’s ability to convert capabilities into functionings largely depends on their parents or guardians, current research has regarded children as mere recipients of functionings without considering children’s agency. This paper advances our understanding of children’s SWB by explicitly considering children’s agency in regard to their safety. Using data from the second wave of the ISCWeB project for eight-year-olds in 16 countries, the paper follows three aims: First, to examine the relationship between safety perception in three different areas and SWB. Second, to investigate the relationship between children’s agency and their SWB. Third, to explore how agency and safety interact in influencing SWB. The results show that children’s agency and their perceived safety at home, in their neighborhood and at school each contribute to their SWB. Further, first empirical evidence is provided on a moderating effect of agency on the relationship between neighborhood safety and wellbeing. The paper makes a case for the relevance of considering children’s agency and alludes to the importance of discriminating between safety in different life domains.

Keywords: Safety; Agency; Capability approach; Subjective well-being; ISCWeB (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12187-017-9519-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:chinre:v:12:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s12187-017-9519-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... f-life/journal/12187

DOI: 10.1007/s12187-017-9519-y

Access Statistics for this article

Child Indicators Research is currently edited by Asher Ben-Arieh

More articles in Child Indicators Research from Springer, The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().