Abstract
Over the past 30 years, a prominent stream of research has addressed the conceptualization and measurement of child well-being and the construction of child well-being indices. This paper extends this accumulating body of research in five ways. First, an index of child well-being for US children ages 6–11 is constructed using individual children (micro-data) as the unit of analysis rather than population-based measures which have typically been used in the past. Second, the new index uses a recently developed US data source (National Survey of Children’s Health) to incorporate far more measures related to child well-being (69) into an index than have been used in past efforts. Third, this research explicitly separates child outcome measures (measures of child well-being) from contextual measures (seen as measures of risk or inputs). Fourth, separate indices are developed for children age 6–11 and those aged 12–17. Fifth, analyses show that contextual indicators add significant albeit modest power over and above common demographic measures (age, gender, race/ethnicity) as predictors of individual differences in well-being among children.
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Notes
There were two small exceptions to this pattern, including a subquestion referring to children’s participation in “other” activities, and a question on school safety for 12–17–year–olds, only.
Sharon Vandivere, William O’Hare, Astrid Atienza, Kerri Rivers. “States Ranked on the Basis of Child Well–Being For Children in Low–income Families”. A Paper Prepared for the Annie E. Casey Foundation. November 2007.
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The support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation is appreciated.
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Moore, K.A., Theokas, C., Lippman, L. et al. A Microdata Child Well-Being Index: Conceptualization, Creation, and Findings. Child Ind Res 1, 17–50 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-007-9000-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-007-9000-4