The objective of this research is to examine the relationship between children’s perception of their available material resources and their subjective well-being. Participants (n = 13,953) resided in eight countries and were largely female (57 %), between the ages of 10–14 (M = 12.05; SD = 0.59). Each child completed a culturally appropriate country-survey that included demographic information and validated measures from the International Survey of Children’s Well-Being project (ISCIWeB), which included the Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale (SLSS) and material resources items. We tested a relational model for predicting subjective well-being and applied structural equation modelling (SEM) to the data. Results indicated that children in Uganda had limited access to material resources and the lowest average of well-being. Together with Algeria and South Africa, Uganda also had the strongest associations between the access to material resources and the SLSS. Even with access to all material resources evaluated, well-being scores are also lower in the case of South Korea, probably due to the so-called “Asian bias”. Children from Israel, Brazil, Spain, and England were similar in their levels of satisfaction and well-being. Our model fit the data well and revealed significant relationships between material resources and child subjective well-being in each country. Preliminary results underscore the importance of assessing material well-being in children and highlight the role material resources have in influencing children’s subjective well-being, especially in cases of children experiencing severe resource deprivation. Our model warrants further testing to replicate and extend our findings. Recommendations for future research are provided.
CITATION STYLE
Sarriera, J. C., Casas, F., Bedin, L., Abs, D., Strelhow, M. R., Gross-Manos, D., & Giger, J. (2015). Material Resources and Children’s Subjective Well-Being in Eight Countries. Child Indicators Research, 8(1), 199–209. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-014-9284-0
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