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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.

We explore the effects of parental economic insecurity on their children’s hyperactivity and anxiety. Our central argument is that even after controlling for current family income and employment status, parents may have legitimate feelings of economic insecurity, and these may be detrimental for their children. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth indicate that the health of 2- to 5-year-old children is worse when parents report themselves to be “worried about having enough money to support the family.” In particular, boys are more hyperactive and girls are more anxious when parents feel less economically secure. Changes in parenting styles appear to be channels through which parental economic insecurity affects their children.

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.

Dans cet article, à partir des données de l’Enquête longitudinale nationale sur les enfants et les jeunes, nous tentons de répondre à trois questions. a) Élever un enfant ayant un handicap ou une maladie chronique a-t-il un effet négatif sur la santé maternelle ? b) Si oui, cet effet croît-il à long terme ? c) Cet effet est-il plus marqué chez les mères célibataires que chez celles qui sont mariées ? Nos observations nous permettent de tirer les conclusions suivantes. Les mères – mariées ou célibataires – qui élèvent un enfant ayant un handicap ou une maladie chronique affirment être en moins bonne santé. Ce phénomène s’amplifie avec le temps. Quand on tient compte des variables que sont les déterminants de la santé, on n’observe pas de différence significative entre l’état de santé des mères célibataires et celui des mères mariées, et le lien entre l’état de santé et le fait d’avoir un enfant handicapé n’est pas plus important chez les mères célibataires que chez celles qui sont mariées.

This paper uses panel data from the Statistics Canada National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (1994–2000) to study the implications of parenting a child with a disability or chronic condition for subjective assessments of parental health. We find mother's health to be negatively affected, particularly if the disability is longer-term. Within families, the wife's health deteriorates relative to her husband's when they are parenting a child with a disability. These results are consistent with Akerlof and Kranton's [Akerlof, G., Kranton, R., 2000. Economics and identity. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 105(3), 715–753] arguments that ‘identity’ is an important determinant of both behaviour and well-being. For parents of children with disabilities, the behaviour associated with a traditional ‘good mother’ identity (e.g., care-giving) appears to have more adverse health consequences than the behaviour associated with a ‘good father’ identity (e.g., breadwinning).

This paper uses a large, nationally representative microdata survey to conduct a multivariate analysis of the correlates of self-assessed happiness for Canadian 12 to 15 year olds living in two-parent families. We ask whether the same factors matter for the happiness of young teens as for adults. And, we ask whether the correlates of being at the bottom of the young teen happiness distribution are the same as the correlates of being at the top. Results suggest that the level of family income correlates with the probability of being at the bottom of the young teen happiness distribution but not with the probability of being at the top. Relative socioeconomic position and peer social relationships, on the other hand, correlate with being at the top but not at the bottom of the young teen happiness distribution. Relationships involving significant adults (parents, teachers) are the most important correlates of young teen happiness.

This paper explores the connection between the labour market and child overweight status in Canada. The labour market is a social institution which plays a critical role in determining how families live their day-to-day lives, for example, how much time and which parts of the day are available for cooking, eating and exercise. Using longitudinal data from the Statistics Canada National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, we find that a history of higher hours of paid work by mothers (but not fathers) is associated with a higher probability of being 'at risk of overweight'/overweight for children aged 6-11. The policy implication we draw from this work is that additional support to better enable parents to engage in paid work without penalty to their own health or that of their children is clearly warranted.

Using data from the “Monitoring the Future” surveys, this paper shows that from the 1980s to the 2000s, the mode of girls’ high school GPA distribution has shifted from “B” to “A,” essentially “leaving boys behind” as the mode of boys’ GPA distribution stayed at “B.” In a reweighted Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition of achievement at each GPA level, we find that changes to gender differences in post-secondary expectations, in particular expectations for attending graduate or professional school, are the most important factors accounting for this trend after controlling for school ability and they occur as early as the eighth grade.

I have, for many years, used quantitative data to compare the well-being of children across countries. This research includes, for example, international comparisons of child poverty and inequality using the Luxembourg Income Study (e.g., Phipps, 1999) as well as international comparisons of children’s health and well-being (e.g., overall health status, obesity, asthma, anxiety, hyperactivity, overall “success at school”) using a variety of reasonably comparable microdata surveys such as the Statistics Canada National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Mother/Child Supplement, the Health Survey for England and the Norwegian Health Survey (e.g., Phipps, 2001, 2002, 2004). However, I have never formally studied and am not aware of existing scientific research on how to make indicators “work,” the topic of our recent meeting and this book. In fact, it is worth pausing to consider from the beginning what exactly we might mean by the word “work” in this context. Personally, in common with most other authors in this volume (e.g., Titler and Ben-Arieh), I would regard an indicator of child well-being as working if its use resulted in improved lives for at least some children. Concretely, though, how could quantitative data on outcomes for children actually achieve such an objective? Since I can in no way claim to know how best to use indicators of child wellbeing at the international level, in what follows I simply provide some reflections based on my own experiences in this area. That is, I attempt to organize some thoughts about cases in which my work with quantitative measures of child outcomes was well received by other scholars, by policymakers, and/or by the general public, and other situations in which I encountered resistance. It is probably important to note at the outset that I am a Canadian academic and that my experiences are very much situated within the Canadian policy context. How then, can international indicators of child well-being have an impact on children’s lives? Two general roles come to mind. First, indicators may help improve knowledge or understanding; second, indicators may help persuade. Consider how indicators can help to increase understanding (see also Moore and Brown, 2005, this volume, who describe a hierarchy of uses for indicators). First, one extremely useful function of quantitative indicators as a means for understanding child outcomes is that the use of indicators forces a certain precision of definition so that everyone can see (in the computer code, if need be), exactly what is meant by otherwise potentially somewhat vague, though very important, constructs such

The unconditional health status of lone mothers is worse than that of married mothers in Canada but not in Norway. Even controlling for demographic characteristics and health behaviours in Canada, the health status of lone mothers is worse. Only after we control for income does the differential in health status between married and lone mothers in Canada disappear. An important difference between the countries is that lone mothers are much less likely to be poor in Norway because they receive more generous social transfers. A simulation which involves 'giving Canadian mothers Norwegian transfers,' illustrates the possibility of significant gains in socioeconomic status and health of poor mothers in Canada.

In this paper, we use the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth data to examine the links between child well-being and neighbourhood 'quality.' This study adds to the literature by (i) investigating the relationship between neighbourhood quality and child health, (ii) by utilizing subjective assessments by individuals familiar with the neighbourhood (i.e., the survey respondent and interviewer), and (iii) by utilizing multiple assessments of neighbourhood quality, and (iv) by investigating several measures of health. Other work has found that controlling for family level characteristics reduces or eliminates the apparent association between neighbourhood quality and health. We find, measuring both child well-being and neighbourhood quality multi-dimensionally, that even after controlling for family level characteristics neighbourhood quality has strong associations with child well-being.

Child obesity is currently an important policy problem in Canada. Making the best evidence-based policy choices in response requires having the best possible evidence. Yet, we point out how easy it can be to make serious mistakes when measuring child obesity, particularly for young children. We demonstrate that parental reports of child height and weight very likely overestimate obesity prevalence for very young children. Given the importance of child obesity as a policy issue, our main conclusion is that it is critical for national surveys in Canada to provide interviewers with appropriate equipment and ask them to weigh and measure children very accurately. While this would certainly increase survey costs, the costs to society of making less than the best policy choices are likely to be even higher.