A Weighted Multidimensional Index of Child Well-Being Which Incorporates Children’s Individual Perceptions

Abstract

It has been a decade since a landmark piece of work on child well-being measurement based on a summary index was developed in the United States, the Index of Child and Youth Well-Being. Several research studies, both in the U.S. and Europe, followed on from this work. Despite these studies' valuable contribution, scope exists for further improvements at the methodological level. In the present paper we draw the methodological basis for a new, micro-based summary child well-being index in which children's views on their own well-being assume a central role and distinct weights (based on the children's perceptions) to each component that is included in the index are used. Based on 914 pairs of responses of Portuguese children and their carers, the newly proposed index was tested vis-à-vis other methodologies. The econometric estimations show that the significance of all potential well-being determinants (e.g., age, school cycle, mother's and father's level of education) remains the same across the distinct methods of calculation of child well-being indexes. However, the consideration of subjective components (degrees of importance and weights) allowed to evidence that the most relevant determinants of child well-being are the set of variables related to the child's parents, namely education and professional status. In particular, when compared to their counterparts, children whose fathers have higher education degrees reveal an increased overall well-being by around 25 %, whereas children whose fathers are unemployed present a decreased well-being by around 11 %.

Quality of life in children: A critical examination of concepts, approaches, issues, and future directions

“…One objection to social indicators is that wealth accounts for much variance in most other indicators; consequently, other indicators may add little additional information about children's QOL beyond their wealth. For example, an indicator of national wealth correlates .91 with a composite of a broader range of other social indicators (e.g., physicians per capita, college attendance) (Diener & Suh, 1997) and the most relevant correlates of a multidimensional child well-being index are parental education and professional status (Fernandes, Mendes, & Teixeira, 2013). The counter-argument is that, even with a very high correlation between wealth-related indicators, they are not equivalent, and each provides value-added information not contained in the other.…”

Trends in Measures of Child and Adolescent Well-being in the US From 2000 to 2019

“…Counting the mediating context as part of the outcome could lead to a false impression of the effectiveness of improving that context by, in a sense, double-counting. Third, index components are typically weighted equally, which may not reflect the components’ actual respective associations with overall well-being …”

“…Given that a single summary indicator might reasonably describe the overall status of children and adolescents, researchers have developed numerous indices of well-being . However, these indicators lack focus on the actual lived experiences of younger people . Specifically, they overlook subjective well-being entirely; conflate contextual measures with more direct individual outcomes; and assume equally weighted components, which may inaccurately represent their actual contribution to well-being.…”

Prevalence and factors associated with multidimensional child deprivation: Findings from the Future of Families and Child Well-Being Study

“…Research suggests that food insecurity negatively affect healthy child development ( Belsky et al, 2010 ; Gundersen & Ziliak, 2015 ; Thomas et al, 2019 ). Although there are various conceptualizations such as food insufficiency ( Alaimo et al, 2002 ), poor nutrition ( Hurley et al, 2016 ), food instability ( Gassman-Pines & Bellows, 2018 ) and related indicators, for example, anthropometric indicators including the Body Mass Index (BMI) ( Leavitt et al, 2003 ) and consuming fresh fruit and vegetables regularly ( Currie et al, 2012 ; Fernandes et al, 2013 ), food insecurity and its relevant indicators are the most typically used to represent whether a child’s healthy development is hampered by the family’s food insecure situation ( Gundersen & Ziliak, 2015 ; Thomas et al, 2019 ). In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) consider the measure of food security as health-promoting conditions for child development ( Coleman-Jensen et al, 2022 ; Ullmann et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Previous literature suggests that poor physical/built and social environmental conditions interrupt a child’s trajectory toward healthy development ( Fernandes et al, 2013 ; Furstenberg & Hughes, 1997 ). Two concepts such as environmental exposures and neighborhood collective efficacy are the most typically used to measure whether a child lives in a safe environment ( Rauh et al, 2008 ; Sampson et al, 1997 ), although there are many indicators related to environmental safety (e.g., lead exposure, poor air quality) ( Aber et al, 2002 ; Coulton & Spilsbury, 2014 ).…”