FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
HOW ARE THE KIDS DOING?
HOW DO WE KNOW?
Recent Trends and International Comparisons
in Child and Youth Well-Being*
Kenneth C. Land, Duke University
Presidential Address
NCSA Annual Meeting, Durham, NC
February 29, 2008
Other members of the Foundation for Child Development Child and Youth
Well-Being Research Project Team are Vicki L. Lamb (NCCU and Duke U),
Sarah O. Meadows (Princeton U), and Hui Zheng (Duke U)
1
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
The Basic Social Indicators Questions
• How are we doing?
• More specifically, with respect to
children, how are the kids
(including adolescents and youths)
doing?
2
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
The Basic Social Indicators Questions
These questions can be addressed by comparisons:
 to past historical values,
 to other contemporaneous units (e.g., comparisons
among subpopulations, states, regions, countries),
or
 to goals or other externally established standards,
The Child and Youth Well-Being Index (CWI),
described below, uses all three points of
comparison.
3
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Three Basic References on the CWI
• Land, Kenneth C. Vicki L. Lamb, and Sarah Kahler Mustillo 2001
“Child and Youth Well-Being in the United States, 1975-1998: Some
Findings from a New Index,” Social Indicators Research, 56,
(December):241-320.
• Land, Kenneth C. Vicki L. Lamb, Sarah O. Meadows, and Ashley
Taylor 2007 “Measuring Trends in Child Well-Being: An EvidenceBased Approach,” Social Indicators Research, 80:105-132.
• Hagerty, Michael R. and Kenneth C. Land 2007 “Constructing
Summary Indices of Quality of Life: A Model for the Effect of
Heterogeneous Importance Weights,” Sociological Methods and
Research, 35(May):455-496.
4
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
What is the CWI?
• A composite measure of trends over time in
the quality of life, or well-being, of
America’s children and young people.
• It consists of several interrelated summary
or composite indices of annual time series
of 28 social indicators of well-being.
5
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
The Principal Objective
of the CWI:
• To give a sense of the overall direction of
change in the well-being of children and
youth in the United States as compared to
1975.
6
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
The CWI is designed to address the
following types of questions:
• Overall, on average, how did child and youth
well-being in the United States change in the
last quarter of the 20th century and into the
present?
• Did it improve or deteriorate, and by how
much?
• In which domains or areas of social life?
7
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
•
•
•
•
For specific age groups?
For particular race/ethnic groups?
For each of the sexes?
And did race/ethnic group and sex
disparities increase or decrease?
8
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Methods of Index Construction
• Annual time series data (from vital statistics and sample
surveys) have been assembled on some 28 national level
indicators in seven quality-of-life domains.
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Family Economic Well-Being
Health
Safety/Behavioral Concerns
Educational Attainment
Community Connectedness
Social Relationships (with Family and Peers)
Emotional/Spiritual Well-Being
9
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
• These seven domains have been wellestablished in over two decades of empirical
studies of subjective well-being, including
studies of children and youths, by social
psychologists and other social scientists.
• In this sense, the CWI is an evidence-based
measure of trends in averages of the social
conditions encountered by children and youths
in the United States.
10
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Table 1. Twenty-Eight Key National Indicators of Child and Youth Well-Being in the United
States.
Family Economic Well-Being Domain
•
Poverty Rate (All Families with Children)
•
Secure Parental Employment Rate
•
Median Annual Income (All Families with Children)
•
Rate of Children with Health Insurance
Health Domain
•
Infant Mortality Rate
•
Low Birth Weight Rate
•
Mortality Rate (Ages 1-19)
•
Rate of Children with Very Good or Excellent Health (as reported by parents)
•
Rate of Children with Activity Limitations (as reported by parents)
•
Rate of Overweight Children and Adolescents (Ages 6-19)
Safety/Behavioral Domain
•
Teenage Birth Rate (Ages 10-17)
•
Rate of Violent Crime Victimization (Ages 12-19)
•
Rate of Violent Crime Offenders (Ages 12-17)
•
Rate of Cigarette Smoking (Grade 12)
•
Rate of Alcohol Drinking (Grade 12)
•
Rate of Illicit Drug Use (Grade 12)
11
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Table 1, Continued
Educational Attainment Domain
•
Reading Test Scores (Ages 9, 13, and 17)
•
Mathematics Test Scores (Ages 9, 13, and 17)
Community Connectedness
•
Rate of Persons who have Received a High School Diploma (Ages 18-24)
•
Rate of Youths Not Working and Not in School (Ages 16-19)
•
Rate of Pre-Kindergarten Enrollment (Ages 3-4)
•
Rate of Persons who have Received a Bachelor’s Degree (Ages 25-29)
•
Rate of Voting in Presidential Elections (Ages 18-20)
Social Relationships Domain
•
Rate of Children in Families Headed by a Single Parent
•
Rate of Children who have Moved within the Last Year (Ages 1-18)
Emotional/Spiritual Well-Being Domain:
•
Suicide Rate (Ages 10-19)
•
Rate of Weekly Religious Attendance (Grade 12)
•
Percent who report Religion as Being Very Important (Grade 12)
Note: Unless otherwise noted, indicators refer to children ages 0-17.
12
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
• Each of the 28 Key Indicators is indexed by
percentage change from the base year, 1975.
– That is, subsequent annual observations are
computed as percentages of the base year.
– Three indicators begin in the mid-1980s and use
corresponding base years.
• The base year is assigned a value of 100.
– The directions of the indicator values are oriented
such that a value greater (lesser) than 100 in
subsequent years means the social condition
measured has improved (deteriorated).
13
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
• The time series of the 28 indicators are grouped
together into the seven domains described
above and domain-specific summary well-being
indices are constructed.
– Within these summary indices, each indicator is
equally weighted.
• The seven component indices are then
combined into the equally-weighted composite
Child and Youth Well-being Index (CWI).
14
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
On Equal Weighting
 In an article on statistical methodology, Hagerty and Land
(2007) consider the general question of how to construct
composite, summary indices for a social unit that will be
endorsed by a majority of its members.
 They assume that many social indicators are available to
describe the social unit, but individuals disagree about the
relative weights to be assigned to each social indicator.
 The composite index that maximizes agree among
individuals can then be derived, along with conditions
under which an index will be endorsed by a majority in the
social unit.
15
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
On Equal Weighting
 Using both a theoretical analysis of a statistical model to
measure the extent of agreement among individuals and
computer simulations, Hagerty and Land (2007) show that
intuition greatly underestimates the extent of agreement
among individuals, and that it is often possible to construct
a composite index with which most individuals agree (at
least in direction).
 In particular, they show that the equal-weighting strategy
is privileged in that it is what statisticians call a minimax
estimator—it minimizes disagreement among all possible
individuals’ weights for the indicators. Hagery and Land
(2007) demonstrate these propositions by calculating real
composite quality-of-life indices from two sample surveys
of individuals’ actual importance weights.
 Some illustrations from Hagerty and Land (2007) follow.
16
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
17
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
18
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Significant Findings
• The following charts show changes over time
in the CWI and its various components.
– Overall Composite Index of Child and Youth
Well-Being
– Domain-Specific Indices
19
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Figure 1: Child Well-Being Index, 1975-2005, with Projections for 2006
110
100
95
90
Year
20
05
20
03
20
01
19
99
19
97
19
95
19
93
19
91
19
89
19
87
19
85
19
83
19
81
19
79
19
77
85
19
75
Percent of Base Year
105
20
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Figure 2. Domain-Specific Summary Indices, 1975-2005, with Projections for 2006.
150
Family Economic Well-Being
Health
140
Safety/Behavioral Concerns
Educational Attainment
Community Connectedness
130
Social Relationships
Emotional/Spiritual Well-Being
110
100
90
80
70
Year
20
05
20
03
20
01
19
99
19
97
19
95
19
93
19
91
19
89
19
87
19
85
19
83
19
81
19
79
19
77
60
19
75
Percent of Base Year
120
21
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Figure 1 shows that improvements in the CWI
essentially have slowed and stalled in the early years
of this first decade of the 21st century.
Just as the CWI allowed us be the first to signal that
the steady increases in numerous Key Indicators in
the period 1994-2002 were indicative not just of
isolated trends, but rather of an overall improvement
in well-being, the CWI now is telling us that this
trend of overall improvement has come to an end.
22
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Index Validation
Do changes in the CWI actually indicate
anything about trends in the subjective wellbeing of America’s children/youths?
To address this question, Land, Lamb,
Meadows, and Taylor (2007) compared
trends in the CWI with those of smoothed
data on overall life satisfaction for High
School Senior from the Monitoring the
Future Study, as shown in the following
chart:
23
110
49
48.5
105
100
47.5
47
95
46.5
90
46
85
Child Well-Being Composite Index
45.5
Monitoring the Future Life Satisfaction
Responses- Moving Average
45
20
03
20
01
19
99
19
97
19
95
19
93
19
91
19
89
19
87
19
85
19
83
19
81
19
79
44.5
19
77
80
19
75
Child Well-Being Composite Index
48
Monitoring the Futire Life Satisfaction Responses-Moving Average
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Year
Figure 6. CWI and Smoothed MTF Life Satisfaction, 1975-2003.
24
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Race/Ethnic Disparities and Trends
In brief, the CWI tells us something about
trends in child and youth well-being in the
U.S. across the past three decades and
appears to have some validity. But are the
trends concentrated only among the white
majority kids and not shared in general?
25
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Race/Ethnic Disparities and Trends
This question recently was addressed in detail
by Don Hernandez and Suzanne Macartney
in:
• Hernandez, Donald J. and Suzanne E. Macartney, “Child
Well-Being 1985-2004: Black-White and Hispanic-White
Gaps Narrowing, But Persist.” Presentation, January 29,
2008. Washington, DC: New America Foundation.
Space and time limitations do not permit a complete review of
their findings, but the following three slides show the
rationale and some overall results.
26
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Slide 2. Percent of U.S. Children Ages 0-17
in Specified Race/Ethnic Groups, 1980-2100
American Indian (2000-2050 with NHOPI, Other)
Asian/NHOPI (2000-2050 Asian alone, 2060-2100 includes American Indian)
Black, Non-Hispanic
Hispanic origin
White, Non-Hispanic
100.0
75.0
50.0
25.0
0.0
1980
1990
2000
2010
2020
2030
2040
2050
2060
2070
2080
2090
2100
Projections for 2000-2050 were released by the Census Bureau March 18, 2004. These projections take into account the much larger Hispanic
27
population identified in Census 2000. Projections and estimates for other years are from an earlier series released by the Census Bureau January
13, 2000, and were based on the count of Hispanics in Census 1990.
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Overall CWI, 1985-2004
120
Average of 7 Domains
Index value
White
110
Hispanic
100
Black
90
80
70
04
20
03
20
02
20
01
20
00
20
99
19
98
19
97
19
96
19
95
19
94
19
93
19
92
19
91
19
90
19
89
19
88
19
87
19
86
19
85
19
28
"Measuring Social Disparities" (2008) by Donald J. Hernandez and Suzanne Macartney; University at Albany, SUNY.
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Closing the Gaps:
How long might it take?
Black-White gap
● 18 years, based on 1993-2004 trends
● 54 years, based on 1985-2004 trends
Hispanic-White gap
● 14 years, based on 1994-2004 trends
● 43 years, based on 1985-2004 trends
29
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
International Comparisons of
Child and Youth Well-Being
But the question remains:
How well are America’s children and youth
doing in recent years as compared to the
children and youth of other nations?
30
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
International Comparisons of
Child and Youth Well-Being
• To address this question, we compare U.S.
trends in child and youth well-being with
those of four other English-speaking
counties, specifically:
–
–
–
–
Australia,
Canada,
New Zealand, and
the United Kingdom.
31
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
These nations were chosen for a number
of reasons:
• all share a common language;
• Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the U.S. are
former colonies of the United Kingdom;
• all five nations are liberal democracies that have
representative democratic forms of government;
• all five also place considerable emphasis on the use of
economic markets for the production and distribution
of goods and services; and
• because of all the above, all share some common
elements of culture.
32
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
• We assembled data on 19 Key International
Indicators of child and youth well-being that
were measured around the year 2000.
• The 19 Key International Indicators can be
classified into 7 domains: Family Economic
Well-Being, Social Relationships, Health, Safety
and Behavior, Educational Attainment,
Community Connectedness, and Emotional
Well-Being.
33
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
• Table 1 presents a “report card” comparison of
child and youth well-being by domain for the
United States and the four English-speaking
countries. The table indicates the measures
used within each domain.
• The B [W] indicates the rates for the U.S. are
better [worse] than for the comparison
country. An = means the rates are equal.
• A blank cell indicates no country-level Key
International Indicator was available.
34
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Table 1. Comparison of Child and Youth Well-Being in US and Four
English-Speaking Countries: Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
Countries
Canada
Domains
Family Economic Well-Being
 Poverty Rate: All Children (Age 0-17)
 Percentage of Working Age Households with
Children Without An Employed Parent
Social Relationships
 Percent of All Children Ages 0-17 Living in Single
Mother Families
Health
 Low Birth Weight
 Infant Mortality
 Child and Youth Mortality (Age 1-19)
 Overweight (Age 13 and 15)
 Self rated "poor or fair health" (Age 11, 13, & 15 )
Safety/Behavioral Concerns
 Teenage Birth Rate (Age 15-19)
 Smoking Daily (Age 11, 13, & 15)
 Drunk Twice or More (Age 11, 13, & 15)
 Having Used Cannabis (Age 15)
Educational Attainment
 Reading (Age 15)
 Math (Age 15)
Educational Attainment/Community Connectedness
 High School Completion (Age 25-34)
 Not Working or In School (Age 15-19)
 Bachelor’s Degree (Age 25-34)
 Preschool Enrollment Rate (Age 3-4)
Emotional Well Being
 Suicide Rate (Age 15-24)
Overall Tally
Australia
1/2
W
B
United
Kingdom
1/2
W
B
0/1
W
1/1
B
0/1
W
0/5
W
W
W
W
W
3/4
W
B
B
B
0/2
W
W
2/4
=
=
B
B
1/1
B
7/19
1/5
=
W
W
W
B
3/4
W
B
B
B
0/2
W
W
3/4
B
B
B
W
0/1
W
9/19
0/4
W
W
W
W
0/3
W
W
=
0/1
W
0/1
W
0/2
W
W
3/4
B
W
B
B
1/1
B
5/15
0/2
W
W
2/3
B
1/2
W
B
New
Zealand
1/2
W
B
B
W
1/1
35 B
4/12
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
• Table 2 presents a different perspective
on these international comparisons:
– a summary of the relative ranking of the
five Anglophone countries based on each
of the seven child and youth well-being
domains and indicators.
36
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
• The domain-specific rankings are based on
the averages of the rankings of the
indicators within each domain.
• They range from ‘1’, the highest ranking
of child well-being, down to ‘5’ (or ‘4’ for
social relationships), which indicates the
lowest ranking among the five countries.
• Two composite rankings for each country
are given at the bottom of the table –
– the average rank across the 7 domains, and
– the average rank across all 19 indicators.
37
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Table 2. Relative Ranking of Five English-Speaking Countries for Child and
Youth Well-Being by Each Domain and Across All Domains and All Indicators
Canada
Australia
United
States
New
Zealand
United
Kingdom
Family Economic Well-Being
1
2
2
2
5
Social Relationships
1
2
3
Health
1
3
5
4
2
Safety/Behavioral Concerns
3
1
2
5
4
Educational Attainment
1
3
5
1
4
Educational Attainment/Community
Connectedness
2
3
1
3
5
Emotional Well-Being
3
4
2
5
1
Average Rank Across All 7 Domains
1.7
2.6
2.9
3.3
3.6
Average Rank Across All 19 Indicators
2.0
2.6
2.9
3.0
3.1
Domain
4
38
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Trends and Implication of Our
International Comparisons:
Overall Conclusions:
Although no country outscores the United States on
all domains of child and youth well-being, our
comparison shows deficiencies in U.S. child and
youth well-being, particularly in Family Economic
Well-Being, Health, and Educational Attainment
domains.
On the other hand, the U.S. does relatively well on
indicators in the Safety/Behavior, Community
Connectedness, and Emotional Well-Being
domains.
39
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Best-Practice Analyses
As noted earlier, the basic social indicators
question of how are we doing can be answered in
three ways.
In addition to comparisons with how we are doing
in comparison to the past and in comparison to
other countries or social units, we can address this
question in terms of comparisons to goals or other
externally-constructed standards.
40
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Best-Practice Analyses
An externally-constructed standard that we have
used for the CWI is a “best practice” standard,
where best practice refers either to the
 “best historical value” of each indicator ever
observed in the U.S., or to the
 “best internationally observed” value of each
indicator among countries for which data are
available.
41
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Best-Practice Analyses
Recent calculations of the values the CWI
would obtain if all of the 28 indicators were
at their best values are:
126.53 for historical best-practice U.S.
values, and
147.36 for international best-practice
values.
42
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
Conclusions
• Trends: The composite CWI indicates improvement in
overall child and youth well-being since the early-1990s to
levels just above those of a generation ago. Race/ethnic
disparities have decreased somewhat, but persist.
• International Comparisons: Among English-speaking
nations, child well-being in the U.S. appears to be in the
middle of the pack—ahead of New Zealand and the U.K.
but behind Canada and Australia.
• Best-Practice Analyses: These show that we could be
doing substantially better.
43
FCD CWI
FCD
CWI
The CWI on the Web:
http://www.soc.duke.edu/~cwi/
This project is funded by grants from the
Foundation for Child Development
44