Yesterday’s publication of the Good Childhood Report 2023 by The Children’s Society marks the twelfth in a series of annual reports about how children in the UK feel about their lives.
The majority of children and young people lead relatively happy lives. A small, but not insignificant, proportion is struggling with their overall life satisfaction, and low happiness with specific aspects of their lives.
We reflect on the report’s key findings and trends; and discuss why consistently capturing a picture of how young people feel is important for our nation’s current and future wellbeing.
The Good Childhood Report 2023 uses two data sources; The Children’s Society’s own annual household survey and the UK longitudinal survey called Understanding Society.1The longitudinal Understanding Society survey asks children aged 10 to 15 in the UK how they feel about their life as a whole, their family, their friends, their appearance, and their schoolwork. The latest data available are for 2020-21, when 1,663 children completed a youth questionnaire. The Children’s Society’s annual online household survey is of parents, carers, and children aged 10 to 17. Since 2010, these surveys have collected data on children’s wellbeing, their household, and other characteristics. The 2023 survey was completed by 2,001 children as well as their parent or carer from May to June this year.
Latest figures from the Good Childhood Index for children (aged 10 to 17)2Source: The Children’s Society’s household survey, wave 22, May to June 2023, children aged 10 to 17, UK, weighted data. Excludes missing responses (including ‘prefer not to say’).
Trends in children’s (aged 10 to 15) happiness with different aspects of life by gender, UK, 2009-10 to 2020-21.3Source: Understanding Society survey, children aged 10 to 15, UK, weighted data (confidence intervals take account of design effect). 4Presentational notes: All graphs use the same size range of values (1.4) so that they can be visually compared. Mean scores are displayed in boxes in those waves where there were significant differences by gender based on non-overlapping confidence intervals (at 99% level).
Time trends in proportion of children (aged 10 to 15) unhappy with different aspects of life, by year of interview.5Source: Understanding Society survey, waves 1 to 12, children aged 10 to 15, UK, weighted data.
Part of the report, measured in Understanding Society, looks at whether children’s unhappiness with five different aspects of life – family, friends, appearance, school, and schoolwork – is a predictor of their low happiness with life as a whole, when controlling for other factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, and wave of the survey.
It found that approximately 31.9% of the variation in low overall subjective wellbeing was explained by the five domain measures of low wellbeing alongside demographic variables.
Predicted probability of children (aged 10 to 15) being unhappy with their life as a whole, by relationship quality.6Source: Understanding Society survey, waves 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 (when these variables were included in the survey), children aged 10 to 15, UK, weighted data. 7Note: The scores presented are predicted probabilities of low subjective wellbeing from a logistic regression that includes all the independent variables shown as well as wave of the survey, age, gender, and ethnicity of the child, family structure, income quintile of the household, and subjective financial difficulties.
Predicted probability of children (aged 10 to 15) being unhappy with their life as a whole, if unhappy with different aspects of life. 8Source: Understanding Society survey, waves 1 to 12, children aged 10 to 15, UK, weighted data 9Note: The scores presented are predicted probabilities of low subjective wellbeing from a logistic regression that includes all the measures of low subjective wellbeing shown as well as age, gender, and ethnicity of the child, and wave of the survey
The report contains data from The Children’s Society’s 2023 household survey on the extent to which children and young people worry or feel positive about their future, including gaining employment.
The analysis shows:
Extent of children’s (aged 10 to 17) worry about their own future 10Source: The Children’s Society’s household survey, wave 22, May to June 2023, children aged 10 to 17, UK, weighted data
Children were also asked how positive they felt about their own future, the future of the country and that of the world. Most felt positive about their own future (74%) but fewer felt the same way about the future of the country (38%) and the world (36%).
Similarly, the life readiness section of the #BeeWell survey of secondary school pupils in Greater Manchester looks at the perception of future skills, careers’ education, and post-Year 11 plans.
We’ll be exploring the concept and measurement of hope further, in conversation with wellbeing expert, economist and author, Carol Graham on Wednesday 1 November, 18:00 – 19:00.
Collecting and analysing wellbeing data from children and young people over time means we can compare different generations, spot trends and track changes. This provides us with a greater understanding of what factors determine and impact wellbeing, and will help the development of safe and effective interventions. In particular it will help organisations, families and communities, who care about our young people, make the most of investment, time and effort.
#BeeWell also surveys the wellbeing of pupils consistently each year, and is now in its third year.
Measuring life satisfaction specifically is important because lower scores can predict other outcomes, including later adult life satisfaction – potentially up to eight years later.
To achieve the goal of improving wellbeing for the population, regular data collection is needed for young people, as is already happening for adults. This could be done consistently from Key Stage 2 in schools, and linked to the National Pupil Database in England or the Pupil Level Annual School Census in Wales.
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