Family, School, and Community Correlates of Children’s Subjective Well-being: An International Comparative Study

The primary purposes of this study are twofold: to examine how family, school, and community factors are related to children’s subjective well-being; and to examine the patterns of the relationships between family, school, and community variables and children’s subjective well-being across nations. We use the data from the pilot study of the International Survey of Children’s Well-Being for our analysis. We use multiple regression and multilevel methods in the study. We find that family, school, and community lives all significantly affect the levels of children’s subjective well-being. We also find that family, school, and community lives of children are important predictors of subjective well-being even after controlling for the country-specific cultural and contextual factors. We find that the economic variables of GDP and inequality are not significant factors predicting children’s subjective well-being. Rather it is the nature of children’s relationships with immediate surrounding environments, such as frequency of family activities, frequency of peer activities, and neighborhood safety, are most consistently related to the levels of children’s subjective well-being across the nations.