Trends in high life satisfaction among adolescentsin five Nordic countries 2002–2014

Abstract

Life satisfaction is an important indicator when assessing positive mental health aspects in populations, including among adolescents. The aim of this study was to investigate trends over time in prevalence of high life satisfaction among adolescents from five Nordic countries: Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden. We used data from four waves of the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children study from 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014 (n=109,847). HBSC is a school-based study examining social circumstances, health and health behaviour among 11-, 13-and 15-years olds every four years in many European and North American countries. The Cantril Ladder, an 11-step visual analogue scale, was used as the measure of life satisfaction, and was dichotomised into two groups: high life satisfaction (scoring 9 or 10 on the scale) and medium/low life satisfaction (scoring <9). Over the 12-year period studied, between 28.6 and 44.8% of adolescents in the five countries rated their life satisfaction as high. Relatively large changes in prevalence levels occurred at the country level over the period. Denmark and Finland showed a steady, significant decline in the prevalence of high life satisfaction over the years. Iceland showed the highest prevalence in 2010. Norway and Sweden showed similar development until 2010, followed by a clear increase for Norway and a sharp decline in adolescent high life satisfaction for Sweden up until 2014. In all countries, high life satisfaction was most prevalent in 11-year-olds and least prevalent in almost all surveys among 15-year-old girls.

Does Vigorous Physical Activity Contribute to Adolescent Life Satisfaction?

“…Adolescent girls are at the greatest risk, especially in the context of experiencing negative feelings and low self-concept and life satisfaction, and in relation to self-harming [ 55 ]. In the Nordic countries, which have an overall high level of LS [ 56 ], the group at the greatest risk of decreasing LS is 15-year-old girls [ 28 ]. It turns out that age and gender have a high level of discriminatory power for life satisfaction and self-rated health and are both significant moderators between adolescents’ health and well-being [ 57 ].…”

“…School-family cooperation in supporting adolescents’ PA may be crucial to maintain high LS among adolescents, especially during and after the pandemic. This has been shown in the Nordic countries where adolescents have high LS [ 28 ] although von Soest, Vakken, Pedersen, and Sletten [ 29 ] have pointed to a decreasing life satisfaction and subjective well-being in Norwegian adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

A Global Decline in Adolescents’ Subjective Well-Being: a Comparative Study Exploring Patterns of Change in the Life Satisfaction of 15-Year-Old Students in 46 Countries

“…The increasing policy interest in assessing children and young people's well-being (ONS 2014a, 2014b) seems well justified in view of the growing body of research reporting declining levels of SWB and positive mental health (e.g. Twenge et al 2017, The Children's Society 2020, Earle 2016, Firth 2016, Mishina et al 2018, Due et al 2019. However, only a few studies have focused on changes in adolescents' LS over time, presenting some contrasting results.…”

“…In research on children and adolescents, LS is the most common indicator used by researchers to study SWB (Proctor et al 2009). Using HBSC data from 2002 and 2014, Due et al (2019) explored changes in high life satisfaction (scoring 9 or 10 in the 0-10 scale) in 5 Nordic countries, finding contrasting trajectories: a decline in Denmark, Finland and Sweden, an increase in Norway and a less clear trend in Iceland. Cosma et al (2020) used data from the last 5 HBSC studies (2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018) to explore changes in the mental well-being of 11-15-year-old adolescents in 36 countries, finding an increase in psychosomatic complaints in most of them but no overall changes in LS, which declined in 13 countries and increased in other 13.…”

Towards enhancing research on adolescent positivemental health

“…The overall prevalence of adolescents having high life satisfaction has declined in most of the Nordic countries examined (Due et al, 2018). However, in 2002, Norway had the lowest prevalence of high life satisfaction, but in the 12 years that followed Norway was the only Nordic country to show a positive development with an almost 10% point increase in the prevalence of high life satisfaction.…”