Can policy influence the subjective well-being of young people?

Jonathan Bradshaw

Institute for Policy Research SymposiumLost Youth in the 21st Century

University of Bath17 September 2014

New interest in subjective well-being both nationally and internationally

Some of it focussed on children and youth There is evidence that subjective well-being

varies Between countries Within countries over time

Also associated with objective well-being at an international level.

But in micro analysis difficult to explain variation. Therefore policy responses not easy to

determine

Outline of argument

Well-being multi-dimensional Objective= material, health, education,

(employment), safety, housing and environment, participation/inclusion.

Subjective= feelings. Hedonic

Affective: positive (joy) and negative feelings (anxiety) Cognitive: Life satisfaction

Eudaimonic: purpose in life, flourishing…. Subjective can be objectively measured In practice mainly cognitive

Objective versus subjective well-being

The outcomes of social policy often evaluated using money metrics Poverty Inequality Spending per capita

Income not reliable Lots of good things left out of GDP

Personal love and care Quality of the environment/Absence of pollution Freedom, Justice

Increasing GDP (after a certain level) does not lead to increased happiness. Easterlin paradox

Why is there new interest in SWB

Life satisfaction (Cantril’s ladder) by GDP per capita OECD (2011)

Richard Layard (2005) Happiness Critique of mainstream economics Prosperity Paradox

Strive to increase income Much richer than in the past We are not happier

Beyond Money

Well-being: Material living standards Health Personal activities/work Political voice/governance Social connections/relationships Environment present/future Insecurity

Elements of quality of life/subjective well-being: Happiness Life satisfaction Positive affect (joy/pride) Negative affect (pain/worry)

Stiglitz/Sen/Fitoussi Commission (2009)on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress

OECD (2011) : How’s Life. Life satisfaction 2010

CHNHUN

PRT INDEST

ZAFRUS IDN

TURGRC

POLJP

NSVK

SVNKOR

CZEESP ITA

CHLDEU

OECDBRA

FRAMEX

BEL ISLGBR

LUX

NZLUSA

AUT IRLFIN ISR

AUSNLD SWE

CHENOR

CANDNK

4.0

4.5

5.0

5.5

6.0

6.5

7.0

7.5

8.0

It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP but on GWB - General Wellbeing. It's about the beauty of our surroundings, the quality of our culture and above all the strength of our relationships. There is a deep satisfaction which comes from belonging to someone and to some place.

David Cameron, May 2006

Beyond Money

Why well-being matters

Promoting well-being is a reasonable goal for any society

Studying well-being can enable us to understand what matters in people’s lives

In the UK ONS has established two programmes to measure national subjective well-being of Adults Children

Personal well-being Life satisfaction Life worthwhile Happiness yesterday Happiness with appearance

Relationships Health What we do Where we live Personal finance Education skills Economy Governance Natural environment http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/user-guidance/well-

being/index.html

Understanding national well-being - ONS

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)

Many, many national reports

Comparative indices of child well-being

The well-being of children in the UK – three reviews latest Bradshaw, J. (ed) (2011) The Well-being of Children in the United Kingdom, Bristol: Policy Press

International comparative studies of child well-being – EU, OECD/UNICEF, CEECIS, Pacific Rim

The well-being of children - at small area level in England using indicators Bradshaw J, Noble M, Bloor K, Huby M, McLennan D, Rhodes D, Sinclair I, Wilkinson K. (2009) A Child Well-Being Index at Small Area Level in England, J. Child Indicators Research 2, 2, 201-219

The subjective well-being of children – Children’s Society survey http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/the_good_childhood_report_2014_-_final.pdf

Trends in the subjective wellbeing of children 1994-2008

Our research on child well-being

UNICEF (2007) Report on Child Well Being

UNICEF 2013 child well-being

Material Situation Health Education Behaviour Housing and

environment Child well-being index

Netherlands 1 5 1 1 4 2.4

Norway 3 7 6 4 3 4.6

Iceland 4 1 10 3 7 5.0

Finland 2 3 4 12 6 5.4

Sweden 5 2 11 5 8 6.2

Germany 11 12 3 6 13 9.0

Luxembourg 6 4 22 9 5 9.2

Switzerland 9 11 16 11 1 9.6

Belgium 13 13 2 14 14 11.2

Ireland 17 15 17 7 2 11.6

Denmark 12 23 7 2 15 11.8

Slovenia 8 6 5 21 20 12.0

France 10 10 15 13 16 12.8

Czech Republic 16 8 12 22 18 15.2

Portugal 21 14 18 8 17 15.6

United Kingdom 14 16 24 15 10 15.8

Canada 15 27 14 16 11 16.6

Austria 7 26 23 17 12 17.0

Spain 24 9 26 20 9 17.6

Hungary 18 20 8 24 22 18.4

Poland 22 18 9 19 26 18.8

Italy 23 17 25 10 21 19.2

Estonia 19 22 13 26 24 20.8

Slovakia 25 21 21 18 19 20.8

Greece 20 19 28 25 25 23.4

USA 26 25 27 23 23 24.8

Lithuania 27 24 19 29 27 25.2

Latvia 28 28 20 28 28 26.4

Romania 29 29 29 27 29 28.6

OECD Index of child well-being

Material situation Health Education Subjective well-being

Living environment Risk and safety

Japan Hong Kong Singapore China Japan Hong Kong

Korea Singapore Japan Vietnam Singapore Singapore

Vietnam Japan Korea Philippines Thailand China

Australia Korea Taiwan Indonesia New Zealand Taiwan

New Zealand Australia New Zealand Taiwan Hong Kong Japan

Taiwan Taiwan Hong Kong Malaysia Malaysia Malaysia

Singapore China Australia Australia China Vietnam

Hong Kong New Zealand Malaysia New Zealand Australia Korea

Thailand Thailand Thailand Singapore Philippines Australia

Indonesia Malaysia Vietnam Thailand Vietnam New Zealand

Malaysia Vietnam Indonesia Hong Kong Indonesia Thailand

China Indonesia Philippines Japan Korea Indonesia

Philippines Philippines   Korea   Philippines

Pacific Rim

CEECIS indexAverage

rankMaterial Housing Health Education Personal Family Risk

Croatia 3.4 1 1 1 4 1 7 9

Bosnia Herzegovina 4.8 9 3 13 - 2 1 1

FYR Macedonia 6.3 8 10 3 6 3 4 10

Serbia 6.6 5 6 9 11 7 3 5

Uzbekistan 7.5 14 2 6 - 13 8 2

Turkmenistan 7.6 - 9 15 - 4 6 4

Belarus 8.3 6 5 4 2 11 14 16

Montenegro 8.6 7 11 8 13 7 2 12

Bulgaria 10.6 2 7 14 5 16 12 18

Ukraine 10.6 4 13 7 8 9 19 14

Kazakhstan 11.1 15 12 10 1 12 17 11

Russia 11.3 3 15 5 3 17 16 20

Kyrgyzstan 11.7 16 17 11 18 5 9 6

Romania 12.0 10 19 16 7 14 5 13

Armenia 12.1 17 8 19 12 15 11 3

Georgia 13.6 18 4 17 15 6 18 17

Turkey 14.0 13 - 12 17 - - -

Azerbaijan 14.1 11 16 20 16 19 10 7

Albania 14.4 12 14 18 9 20 13 15

Tajikistan 14.4 19 18 21 10 10 15 8

Moldova 16.1 20 20 2 14 18 20 19

Child well-being by GDP Euros per capita: EU only

gdp100000800006000040000200000

do

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in

120.00

110.00

100.00

90.00

80.00

uk

swe

spa

sln

slk

rom

porpol

nor

net

mal

lux

lit

lat

ita

ire

hun gre

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fra

fin

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R Sq Linear = 0.477

WELL-BEING BY CHILD POVERTY RATE: EU only

Child well-being and inequality: EU only

WELL-BEING BY FAMILY BREAKDOWN

Measures not very good Lost in translation – life satisfaction Adaptive preferences Homeostatic adaptation Difficult to explain variations Personality a factor Most important factor relationships and choice

- ?social policies But

Why subjective well-being might not be a cause for social policy

Multiple regression of subjective well-being: England (The Children’s Society)

Variable Demographic variables only

+ deprivation scale + family type

Year group (6 as reference)

8 -1.16** -1.39** -1.33**10 -2.82** -2.86** -2.80**

Ethnicity (white as reference)

Mixed -0.83 NS -0.82 NS -0.91 NSIndian -1.06 NS -0.36 NS -0.65 NS

Pakistani/ Bangladeshi -0.59 NS -0.52 NS -0.59 NS

Black -0.18 NS 0.23 NS 0.33 NSOther 0.59 NS 0.56 NS 0.42 NS

Number of siblings (none as reference)

1 0.30 NS 0.20 NS 0.07 NS2 0.09 NS -0.03 NS -0.21 NS

3+ 0.01 NS 0.09 NS 0.02 NSSex (boy as reference) -0.66 * -0.73* -0.73*Learning difficulties (no as reference) -0.60 NS -0.31 NS -0.32 NSPhysical disability (no as reference) -1.39 NS -1.07 NS -1.18 NSDeprivation score   -0.68** -0.64**Family type (both parents as reference)

Lone parent     -1.26**Step family     -0.90*

Other     -4.68*r² 0.09 0.17 0.19

Feels there are people who support them

Has been bullied more than three times in the

past three months

Does not have enough friends

Does not feel safe at home

Family does not get along well together

Feels their life has a sense of purpose

Does not look forward to going to school

Does not feel free to express their opinions

Likes the way they look

Has a lot less money than their friends

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

64%

33%

17%

24%

42%

44%

51%

36%

24%

35%

93%

7%

5%

1%

5%

78%

19%

6%

65%

12%

Average to high well-being Low well-being

% of children

Overall subjective well-being HBSC

Mean life satisfaction among 12-year-olds in 11 countries: Children’s Worlds Pilot

Correlations with subjective well-being

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**

Objective and subjective child well-being: UNICEF 2013

-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

-0.170

0.747

-0.1450.254 0.417

-0.299

1.234

0.4940.766

-0.800

-0.085

1.038

0.351

-0.435

-1.810

-1.232

0.660

1.3030.998

-0.225-0.117

-3.382

-0.545

0.592

-0.238

0.9450.634

0.156

-1.106

R² = 0.344396820633918

subjective well-being index

over

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Social spending and subjective well-being

Child happiness has increased in the UK

Mean happiness of 11-15 year olds (BHPS/US 1994-2011). With 95% confidence intervals)

Reduction in child poverty? Big increase in spending on children? Institutional transformation? Is it schools – social and emotional education

and anti bullying? Is it social networking - friends and girls? Is it getting worse now?

Why?

How to measure well-being How to affect it with public policy How to organise to influence it

It varies over time It varies between countries It varies between individuals

What effects your well-being? What can be done to improve it? http://www.actionforhappiness.org/

We have much to learn

Jonathan.bradshaw@york.ac.uk Twitter @profjbradshaw http://php.york.ac.uk/inst/spru/profiles/jrb.php

Thank you for listening