Professor Jonathan Bradshaw. Subjective well-being and social policy. Plenary. Child Indicators in a Globalized World: Implications for Research, Practice and Policy, 4th International Society for Child Indicators Conference, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea, 29 May 2013.

1. Jonathan Bradshaw
International Society for Child Indicators
Seoul
Korea
29 May 2013

2. 








State of the World’s Children (UNICEF)
Innocenti Report Cards (UNICEF)
Doing Better for Children (OECD)
Child poverty and derivation (EU)
Child well-being (EU Tarki)
African Report on Child Well-being (ACPF)
Multi-dimensional child poverty (Bristol)
Children’s Chances Heymann and Mc Neill
McGill University http://childrenschances.org
Many, many national reports

3. 
Comparative focus
 Accept we can for objective well-being
domains
 Concentrate on subjective well-being
 Can nations make their children happier?

7. 
Validity
 Unreliable

Lost in translation
 Cultural patterns
 False expectations/adaptive preferences
 Homeostatic adaptability

Difficult to explain

8. Variable
Year group (6 as
reference)
Ethnicity (white as
reference)
Number of siblings
(none as reference)
8
10
Mixed
Indian
Pakistani/ Bangladeshi
Black
Other
1
2
3+
Sex (boy as reference)
Learning difficulties (no as reference)
Physical disability (no as reference)
Deprivation score
Family type (both
Lone parent
parents as reference)
Step family
Other
r²
Demographic
variables only
-1.16**
-2.82**
-0.83 NS
-1.06 NS
-0.59 NS
+ deprivation scale
+ family type
-1.39**
-2.86**
-0.82 NS
-0.36 NS
-0.52 NS
-1.33**
-2.80**
-0.91 NS
-0.65 NS
-0.59 NS
-0.18 NS
0.59 NS
0.30 NS
0.09 NS
0.01 NS
-0.66 *
-0.60 NS
-1.39 NS
0.23 NS
0.56 NS
0.20 NS
-0.03 NS
0.09 NS
-0.73*
-0.31 NS
-1.07 NS
-0.68**
0.09
0.17
0.33 NS
0.42 NS
0.07 NS
-0.21 NS
0.02 NS
-0.73*
-0.32 NS
-1.18 NS
-0.64**
-1.26**
-0.90*
-4.68*
0.19

9. 
Validity
 Unreliable

Lost in translation
 Cultural patterns
 False expectations/adaptive preferences
 Homeostatic adaptability

Difficult to explain
 Not independent of personality
 Domains of subjective well-being ? Not policy
amenable

11. Overall subjective
well-being
Material well-being
domain
.677**
Health and safety domain
.542**
Education domain
.474**
Behaviour domain
.534**
Housing and environment
domain
.610**
Overall (exc subjective)
.666**

14. 





Children in care
Life events matter
Quality of relationships more important than
structure
Involvement in decision making makes a
difference
Children’s feelings of material deprivation
matter
Bullying matters

15. 45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
More than 3
times
2/3 times
once
never

18. Without bullying
With bullying
Year 8
-1.26**
-1.41**
Year 10
-2.70**
-2.88**
Sex (ref: boy )
-0.60*
-0.58*
Deprivation scale
-0.78**
-0.60**
Year group (ref:
year 6)
Bullied (ref: never)
-1.16**
2 or 3 times
-2.35**
More than 3
times
r²
Once
-3.58**
0.19
0.26

20. 
Amenable directly to policy

Decent houses
 Safe neighbourhoods
 No bullying
 Enjoy and achieve in school
 Not materially deprived

Amenable indirectly to policy

Family and other relationships



Reducing burdens of poverty and inequality on parents
Treating and preventing parental depression
Providing family friendly services

21. 
Intervention studies

(Finnish experiment with bullying)
 Cognitive counselling
 Social and emotional education
 Layard “create the most happiness possible and
the least misery”
http://www.actionforhappiness.org

Surveys of subjective well-being in more
countries
 Comparative studies of subjective well-being

Children’s Worlds

22. 
Countries at a loss for what to do
 Children the main victims of recession
 OECD and EU preoccupied with social
investment state –



Advocates of services versus benefits
Making the case for maintaining welfare state in
the face of the recession
Focus on childcare




Developmental/cognitive arguments
Compensatory intervention
Well becoming
Probably inequitable