Table Of ContentMeasuring What Matters
for Child Well-being
and Policies
Measuring What Matters
for Child Well‑being
and Policies
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Please cite this publication as:
OECD (2021), Measuring What Matters for Child Well-being and Policies, OECD Publishing, Paris,
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Foreword
Overwhelming evidence attests to the importance of our well-being as children in shaping who we are and
what we can become when we grow older. Child well-being leaves its impression on well-being at every
point in life. It manifests itself in our health, our job opportunities, our family life and our relationships. Child
well-being policies, from family supports and early childhood education and care and to housing, schooling,
health services, and culture and leisure facilities can have important effects on children’s opportunities to
flourish and grow. They can help level the playing field and ensure that all children – regardless of
background and life circumstances – can develop to their full potential and enjoy the good things in life
Countries will confront difficult challenges as they begin to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Since
the beginning of this global crisis, the OECD has stressed the need for countries to quickly take measures
to minimise risks to children’s well-being and provide assistance and support to the most vulnerable.
Looking forward, to set up our future generation of adults to prosper and flourish in the midst of the
challenges that may lie ahead, promoting child well-being should sit at the heart of countries’ post COVID-
19 recovery efforts.
This report builds on a long history of OECD work on child well-being. Important milestones include the
publication of the 2009 flagship report Doing Better for Children, a dedicated chapter on child well-being
in OECD How’s Life? 2015, the PISA 2015 and PISA 2018 reports on Students’ Well-Being, and the 2019
report Changing the Odds for Vulnerable Children: Building Opportunities and Resilience. In 2017, the
Organisation established the OECD Child Well-being Data Portal – a hub for cross-national data on child
well-being and the settings in which children grow up. Most recently, over the past few years, the OECD
has established several new and important international surveys – including the OECD International Early
Learning and Child Well-being Study and the OECD Study on Social and Emotional Skills – that seek to
collect data on the well-being of children at various points in childhood.
This report goes one step further by pushing forward the child data agenda and laying the groundwork for
better child data infrastructures. It develops a new conceptual framework for measuring child well-being,
identifies key gaps in child data, and outlines priorities for child data development. The over-arching aim
is not just to motivate improvements in child well-being data in and of itself, but also to build better and
more useful data to inform the development of better child well-being policies. The report and its lessons
form a key pillar of the OECD’s ongoing efforts to improve the availability of international child data,
including the development of a key indicator dashboard to monitor child well-being, and to assist countries
in measuring better what matters most in children’s lives.
This report was prepared by the OECD Centre on Well-Being, Inclusion, Sustainability and Equal
Opportunity (WISE Centre) with contributions from the OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour and
Social Affairs (ELS). It was developed under the leadership of Romina Boarini (Director of OECD WISE
Centre) and the supervision of Olivier Thévenon (Head of the Child Well-Being Unit, OECD WISE Centre),
Willem Adema (Social Policy Division, ELS) and Monika Queisser (Head of Social Policy Division & Senior
Counsellor, ELS) are kindly acknowledged for providing inputs and comments at the early stage of the
process.
MEASURING WHAT MATTERS FOR CHILD WELL-BEING AND POLICIES © OECD 2021
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The report was written by Olivier Thévenon (lead author), Chris Clarke and Gráinne Dirwan (OECD WISE
Centre), and Jonas Fluchtmann (OECD ELS). Anne-Lise Faron, OECD WISE Publications and Event
Coordinator, prepared the manuscript for publication. Julia Carro, OECD WISE Centre, and Martine Zaïda,
OECD WISE Communications, Partnership and Forum Manager, provided support and advice on
communication aspects.
The report benefited from comments and feedback by Richie Poulton (Chief Science Advisor to the New
Zealand Minister for Child Poverty Reduction), Nichola Shackleton and Debra Small (New Zealand Social
Wellbeing Agency), Michele Cecchini, Emily Hewlett, Gaetan Lafortune and Michael Müller (Health
Division, OECD ELS), Willem Adema (Social Policy Division, OECD ELS), Tracey Burns, Francesca
Gottschalk, Rowena Phair and Mario Piacentini (OECD Directorate for Education and Skills), and Romina
Boarini, Carrie Exton and Lara Fleischer (OECD WISE Centre). The authors are grateful to the members
of the OECD Working Party on Social Policy for the many comments and suggestions made on an earlier
version of the report.
The OECD gratefully acknowledges financial support provided by New Zealand for the preparation of this
report.
MEASURING WHAT MATTERS FOR CHILD WELL-BEING AND POLICIES © OECD 2021
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Table of contents
Foreword 3
Executive summary 8
1. Overview and summary 10
1.1. Introduction 11
1.2. Child well-being measurement in OECD countries 12
1.3. An “aspirational” framework for child well-being measurement 16
1.4. An overview of key priorities and gaps in cross-national child data 19
1.5. The agenda ahead for child data 24
References 26
Annex 1.A. Summary of dimensions and indicators included in national and cross-national child
well-being measurement initiatives 30
Notes 33
2. Measuring what matters most for children 34
2.1. Introduction and main findings 35
2.2. What does child well-being mean? Conceptual foundations for child well-being
measurement 37
2.3. A conceptual framework for measuring child well-being 50
References 60
3. Do children have the things they need? 72
3.1. Introduction and main findings 73
3.2. Key child material outcomes 74
3.3. Key aspects of children’s settings and environments for child material outcomes 80
3.4. Key public policies for child material outcomes 85
3.5. Data on children’s economic and material well-being 88
3.6. The way forward 95
References 98
Annex 3.A. Overview of available and comparable cross-national data on children's economic
and material well-being 110
4. Are children active and physically healthy? 114
4.1. Introduction and main findings 115
4.2. Physical health as a key driver of well-being across childhood 116
4.3. Physical health outcomes 121
4.4. Health behaviours 125
4.5. Environment and public policies 128
MEASURING WHAT MATTERS FOR CHILD WELL-BEING AND POLICIES © OECD 2021
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4.6. Overview of data availability 132
4.7. The way forward 138
References 143
Annex 4.A. Details on data availability 166
5. Do children feel safe and secure, respected, included and happy? 182
5.1. Introduction and main findings 183
5.2. Key aspects of social and emotional well-being 186
5.3. Key influences on children’s social and emotional outcomes 203
5.4. Overview of data availability 208
5.5. The way forward 210
References 218
Annex 5.A. The Big Five domains of social-emotional development 240
Annex 5.B. Overview of data on children’s social and emotional well-being 242
6. Are children learning and achieving in education? 250
6.1. Introduction and main findings 251
6.2. An overview of cognitive development and educational attainment 252
6.3. Cognitive development and educational progression and attainment 255
6.4. Key influences on children’s cognitive development and education outcomes 260
6.5. Overview of data availability 265
6.6. The way forward 272
References 276
Annex 6.A. Details on data availability 290
FIGURES
Figure 1.1. The OECD Well-being Framework 14
Figure 1.2. The aspirational child well-being measurement framework 17
Figure 2.1. Summarised conceptual framework for child well-being measurement 37
Figure 2.2. The conceptual framework for child well-being measurement 51
Figure 2.3. Correspondence between levels and areas of the conceptual framework for child well-being
measurement and dimensions of the OECD Well-being Framework 57
Figure 4.1. Channels through which policies impact child health 120
Annex Figure 4.A.1. Infant mortality rates 168
Annex Figure 4.A.2. Low birth weight 169
Annex Figure 4.A.3. Children deprived of basic nutrition 174
Annex Figure 4.A.4. Vaccination rates 175
Annex Figure 4.A.5. Adolescents doing no exercise 176
Annex Figure 5.A.1. The Big Five Domains of social-emotional development 241
TABLES
Table 1.1. Selected national and cross-national child well-being frameworks, initiatives and indicator sets 15
Table 3.1. Key aspects of children’s economic and material well-being 76
Table 4.1. Key aspects of children’s physical health throughout childhood 117
Table 4.2. Top 5 most significant child morbidities in the OECD 124
Table 4.3. Overview of available data sources 133
Table 5.1. Key aspects of children’s social and emotional well-being throughout childhood 189
Table 5.2. Overview of available data sources 209
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Table 6.1. Key aspects of children’s cognitive development and educational well-being throughout childhood 254
Table 6.2. Overview of available data sources 266
Annex Table 1.A.1. Summary of dimensions and indicators included in national and cross-national child well-
being measurement initiatives 30
Annex Table 3.A.1. Overview of available and comparable cross-national data on children's economic and
material well-being 110
Annex Table 4.A.1. Data on physical health outcomes and key pre-natal determinants 170
Annex Table 4.A.2. Child health behaviours and other health activities 177
Annex Table 4.A.3. Data on environments and public policies 179
Annex Table 5.B.1. International data on adolescents’ social and emotional well-being 245
Annex Table 5.B.2. International data on middle-aged children’s social and emotional well-being 248
Annex Table 6.A.1. Data on cognitive development and educational achievements 290
Annex Table 6.A.2. Data on educational attitudes and aspirations 291
Annex Table 6.A.3. Data on the student’s environment 292
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Executive summary
To design, implement and monitor effective child well-being policies, policy-makers need data that capture
what is going on in children’s lives, that measure what is important to them, and that can detect emerging
problems and vulnerabilities before they take hold.
In recent decades, great strides have been made in measuring child well-being and understanding the
richness of children’s lives and experiences. National statistical offices, international organisations and
academic researchers alike have engaged in a range of activities aimed at developing better data. At the
cross-national level, international instruments like the Children’s Worlds survey, the Health Behaviour in
School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey, and the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment
(PISA) have helped advance what we know and understand about children at different points in childhood
in a range of areas. At the national level, in many countries, a growing number of country-specific surveys
and datasets have greatly expanded the evidence base on child well-being. Yet despite these efforts, most
OECD countries do not have good data to base their child well-being policies on, nor strong data
infrastructures for policy monitoring.
Measuring What Matters for Child Well-being and Policies aims to push forward the child data agenda to
inform the development of better child well-being policies. It lays the groundwork for improvements in child
well-being measurement. It outlines a new “aspirational” conceptual framework for child well-being
measurement, setting out which aspects of children’s lives should be measured in order to best monitor
child well-being. It also outlines priorities for child data development and identifies key data gaps, all with
a view of motivating improvements in child data infrastructures.
An “aspirational” conceptual framework for child well-being measurement
The conceptual framework has its roots in the understanding that children should be able to both enjoy a
“good” childhood in the here and now, and have the opportunity to develop skills and abilities that allow
them to prepare for the future. It is “aspirational” is the sense that it is not guided by immediate data
availability considerations, but instead by research findings on the key aspects of well-being that matter
for children and for supporting their full development.
The framework seeks to overcome a common shortcoming in child well-being measurement: treating the
different dimensions of child well-being – material well-being, physical health, social, emotional and cultural
well-being, and cognitive development and educational well-being – as if they are separate or independent
from one another. Well-being needs to be understood as a whole because its dimensions develop
alongside one another.
The framework innovates on child well-being measurement in several ways. First, its multi-level structure
helps clarify the importance of children’s environments, relationship, and other potential influences,
emphasising that these potential drivers of well-being are distinct from outcomes. Second, it pays greater
attention to ways in which the things that children want, need and should be able to do change through
childhood. Finally, it looks to reinforce efforts to integrate children’s own thoughts, views and perspectives
across layers of child well-being measurement.
MEASURING WHAT MATTERS FOR CHILD WELL-BEING AND POLICIES © OECD 2021
