Subjective Well-being of Brazilian Children Over Time: Comparing Children’s Worlds 1st and 3rd Wave of 10 and 12-year-olds Samples

Abstract

This study aims to verify differences in the subjective well-being of 10 and 12 years old Brazilian boys and girls over time using data from the First (2012) and the Third (2019) Wave of Brazilian data collection on Children's Worlds research. Participants of the first wave were 2,338 children (M = 11.08 years old, 55.3% girls) and of the third wave, they were 1,787 children (M = 11.33 years old, 55.3% girls). We performed a Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) with subjective well-being scales (OLS, PWI-SC and BMSLSS) used as dependent variables, and age, gender and times of measurement (wave of data collection) were used as independent variables. Main results present that there are significant reductions of all subjective well-being means over time (from 2012 to 2019) regardless gender and age. These results denounce the profound changes in contexts associated with diminished investment in education, access to health, social care and children’s rights’ policies overall in Brazil and reinforce the perspective that children’s participation in society is essential for the development of public policies that represent their current needs.