Child Well-being in the Pacific Rim

TY - JOUR

T1 - Child Well-being in the Pacific Rim

AU - Lau, Maggie

AU - Bradshaw, Jonathan

N1 - © Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010. This is an author produced version of the article published. This paper has been peer-reviewed but does not include the journal pagination. The original publication is available at springerlink.com: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12187-010-9064-4

PY - 2010/7/1

Y1 - 2010/7/1

N2 - This study extends previous efforts to compare the well-being of children using multi-dimensional indicators derived from sample survey and administrative series to thirteen countries in the Pacific Rim. The framework for the analysis of child well-being is to organise 46 indicators into 21 components and organise the components into 6 domains: material situation, health, education, subjective well-being, living environment, as well as risk and safety. Overall, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan have the highest child well-being and Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines the lowest. However, there are substantial variations between the domains. Japan and Korea perform best on the material well-being of children and also do well on health and education but they have the lowest subjective well-being among their children by some margin. There is a relationship between child well-being and GDP per capita but children in China have higher well-being than you would expect given their GDP and children in Australia have lower well-being. The analysis is constrained by missing data particularly that the Health Behaviour of School-Aged Children Survey is not undertaken in any of these countries.

AB - This study extends previous efforts to compare the well-being of children using multi-dimensional indicators derived from sample survey and administrative series to thirteen countries in the Pacific Rim. The framework for the analysis of child well-being is to organise 46 indicators into 21 components and organise the components into 6 domains: material situation, health, education, subjective well-being, living environment, as well as risk and safety. Overall, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan have the highest child well-being and Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines the lowest. However, there are substantial variations between the domains. Japan and Korea perform best on the material well-being of children and also do well on health and education but they have the lowest subjective well-being among their children by some margin. There is a relationship between child well-being and GDP per capita but children in China have higher well-being than you would expect given their GDP and children in Australia have lower well-being. The analysis is constrained by missing data particularly that the Health Behaviour of School-Aged Children Survey is not undertaken in any of these countries.

KW - Child well-being

KW - Pacific Rim

KW - Far-East

KW - multi-dimensional index

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77949328745&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s12187-010-9064-4

DO - 10.1007/s12187-010-9064-4

M3 - Article

SN - 1874-8988

VL - 3

SP - 367

EP - 383

JO - Child Indicators Research

JF - Child Indicators Research

IS - 3

ER -