Evidence from new ISER studies into the factors affecting children’s wellbeing has been published as part of the inquiry by the Health Select Committee into children and young people’s mental health and the role of education.
The research by Dr Cara Booker and Dr Gundi Knies used both longitudinal and cross sectional analysis of data collected from the 10-15 year olds participating in Understanding Society to unpick the issues and circumstances affecting the happiness of young people in this age range.
The Committee is examining:
- Promoting emotional wellbeing, building resilience, and establishing and protecting good mental health
- Support for young people with mental health problems
- Building skills for professionals
- Social media and the internet
Key findings in the ISER evidence submitted were:
1.
In order to help children
with socio-emotional difficulties or
to prevent them from
developing socio-emotional difficulties, it is necessary
to understand the causes and
influences
on their
wellbeing. Understanding their behaviours, attitudes and socio-
economic
status
is crucial to unpicking the causes of
socio-emotional difficulties.
At
the
moment there’s only one
source of data available for longitudinal analysis of children’s
subjective wellbeing
– Understanding
Society
,
the UK Household Longitudinal Study.
This is
the largest household panel study in the world,
combining
socio-economic
information with
reported attitudes and
behaviours
collected annually.
The uniqueness of
Understanding
Society lies in offering repeat observation of subjective
well-being
measures
from children
themselves. The data
are used by ONS and researchers to examine influences and effects
and
to measure children’s subjective wellbeing. More could be
done to
link
with
administrative data sets such as health
and
education.
Understanding Society
has
made
a start by linking rich individual, family and household
data
with
the
National Pupil Database
for England but administrative data linkage
with
other stages of
education is equally
important.
The government
departments
of
health
and education could give
greater
priority
in allowing researchers to link administrative data
to
Understanding Society
data to better
understand the changing nature
of children’s wellbeing
in the
UK and its
effects on health,
education
and other outcomes.
2.
Our cross-sectional analysis of
Understanding Society
has found that healthier eating was
associated with
lower
odds of socio-emotional difficulties,
while increased fast food
consumption was
associated with higher odds of socio-emotional
difficulties. Smoking,
drinking and decreased
sport participation were all
associated with socio-emotional
difficulties. We found that health-protective
behaviours were
associated with happiness
while health-risk behaviours were associated with
socio-emotional
difficulties.
3.
The use of
screen based
media – games, social media, TV
– has
an impact on children’s
wellbeing.
We found that overall,
young
people participating in heavy use
of screen based
media were less
happy and more likely to have socio-emotional difficulties
than moderate
users. Chatting on social networking websites
more was associated with lower odds of
happiness and
higher odds of socio-emotional difficulties. Using
games consoles was
associated with
higher
odds of
socio-emotional problems. Higher
total screen based media use was
associated
with lower odds of
happiness and higher odds of
socio-emotional
difficulties. Greater participation in sport was associated with higher odds
of happiness and
lower odds of socio-emotional difficulties.
4.
Longitudinal analysis
of
Understanding Society
data finds differences between ethnicity,
age
and
gender when
examining declining levels
of wellbeing in
young people. In
the
early
teens,
ethnic minority males are
happier than
their
White British counterparts while the
opposite
is
true
for
females.
As they age,
all
children
get less satisfied with
life but
for girls
this
effect
starts
at age
11
and
is more pronounced
for ethnic minorities.
5.
Poorer
children are
unhappier. Children become
less
satisfied
with their life in
years when
their
family income is lower, and at any point in time, children with lower household
income
are unhappier
than
their
counterparts
with a higher household income.
6.
Children living
with
both biological parents show higher levels of
life satisfaction than
those
living with
just one parent.
7.
Children
are less satisfied with their
life
during the school holidays
The full submission (pdf) can be downloaded from the Committee page here