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Although disability has been on the psychological agenda for some time, there is limited empirical evidence on the life satisfaction of youth with a disability, especially the effect of discrimination and factors that might mitigate it. We address this critical gap by examining the complex social experiences of youth with a disability and the culminating effect on life satisfaction. We ask three questions: (1) Is having a disability associated with lower life satisfaction? (2) Do youth with a disability experience discrimination and, if so, how does this affect life satisfaction? (3) Can a sense of belonging mitigate the negative effect of discrimination? We address these questions using microdata from the Canadian Community Health Survey, which is nationally representative. Our sample consists of 11,997 adolescents, of whom 2193 have a disability. We find that life satisfaction is lower among youth with a disability. Moreover, many experience disability-related discrimination, which has a negative effect on life satisfaction. However, this is mitigated by a sense of belonging to the community. Specifically, youth with a disability do not report lower life satisfaction when high belonging is present, even if they experience discrimination. This is true for boys and girls. We conclude that belonging, even if it is not disability-related, is protective of well-being. This has important implications for policy whereby organizations that cultivate a sense of belonging may alleviate the harm sustained by youth who experience discrimination as a result of their disability.

Despite the compelling evidence of the long-run consequences of childhood inattention/hyperactivity and harmful side effects of stimulant medication, relatively little is known about accessible non-pharmacological options to reduce inattentive/hyperactive behaviours. This study evaluates the effect of daily exercise on inattentive/hyperactive behaviours among young children by leveraging evidence from a quasi-experiment generated when 3 Canadian provinces adopted mandatory requirements for all students in grades 1 through 6 to participate in 20–30 min of daily physical activity at school between 1994 and 2009. By exploiting plausibly exogenous variations in the timing of implementation and duration of physical activity mandated as well as over 20,000 observations on a sample of nationally representative children, our difference-in-differences estimates indicate that brief bouts of daily exercise at school effectively reduce inattention/hyperactivity in children – with the beneficial effect enhanced by the duration of exercise mandated. Importantly, most of the exercise effect is concentrated on boys. Since boys' higher rates of inattention/hyperactivity contribute to the explanation for boys’ lagging academic motivation and achievement, we argue that providing more scope for physical activity during the school day might be a feasible policy option not only for reducing inattentive/hyperactive behaviours, but also for helping to close the educational gender gap in the longer run.

Along with the Nordic countries, France leads the European Union in public childcare provision and benefits aimed at reducing child care costs for families (Adema & Thevenon, 2008; Fagnani & Math, 2008) (see Chapter 17 in this book). In a recent cross-national study, OECD1 has also shown that family spending has the greatest focus on childcare services in France and the Nordic countries. As a matter of fact, the progressive arrival of mothers on the labour market since the 1970s has, through an interactive process, prompted French family policy decision makers to introduce a whole range of services for parents in paid employment, which has in turn enabled a growing number of mothers to gain access to jobs. This has helped to place the question of the work/family life balance firmly onto the policy agenda.