Improved Children’s Wellbeing

The headline value for improved children’s wellbeing is based on the work of Isaac Parkes (LSE) in partnership with Dr Allan Little (State of Life).

The discussion paper is titled “The C-WELLBY: Towards a Universal Measure of Children’s Wellbeing for Policy Analysis” and the accompanying State of Life blog post is “The C-WELLBY for Children’s Wellbeing – We Have Lift Off.”

Children aged 10 and above: 

Evidence in the paper suggests that children aged 10 and above are capable of making meaningful evaluations of their lives as a whole. The Understanding Society youth survey includes a life satisfaction question that can reasonably be interpreted as an evaluative judgement, aligning with established approaches in wellbeing research. Minor variations in question wording across surveys are common and generally considered acceptable, as long as the core concept of evaluative wellbeing remains consistent. For instance, the item “How satisfied are you with your life nowadays? 0: Not at all, 10: Completely” can be used interchangeably with the standard life satisfaction measure. Based on this, it is recommended that life satisfaction measures — and by extension, WELLBYs adapted for children — are applied in cost–benefit analyses concerning children aged 10 and above. From an equity perspective, these child life satisfaction improvements should be assigned the same monetary value as adult WELLBYs, currently estimated at £15,920 (2024 prices; HMT, 2021). 

Children under 10 

For children under 10, asking them directly about life satisfaction (like “How happy are you with your life?”) is not very reliable, because they are still developing the ability to reflect and evaluate in that way. 

Instead, researchers suggest using other wellbeing measures that are more suitable for young children, and then “translating” those scores into C-WELLBYs (so they can be compared and included in cost–benefit analyses). 

The method they use is called a mapping function — basically a statistical tool that converts one measure (like a behavioural or emotional score) into another measure (like wellbeing). Specifically, they recommend using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) Total Difficulties Score, which is a widely used measure of children’s behavioural and emotional wellbeing for ages 2–9. 

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) consist of 20 items grouped into four domains: emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity, and peer relationship difficulties. Each item is rated on a scale from 0 (no difficulties) to 2 (severe difficulties). Results are usually reported either as a Total Difficulties Score (summing all items, range 0–40) or as an Internalising Score (SDQ-I), which includes only emotional symptoms and peer relationship items (range 0–20).  

The paper recommends ‘mapping’ SDQ scores on to the WELLBY by using the mapping functions because we’re observing the change in the emotional, conduct and behavioural outcomes that SDQ captures and at present, it is uncertain which aspects of the SDQ are the strongest predictors of children’s life satisfaction.  

They found that each one-point increase in the SDQ difficulties score (meaning more problems reported) corresponds to a decrease of 0.146 in the WELLBY value. So: worse SDQ score → lower C-WELLBY score → lower wellbeing. 

The following example is provided in the paper: Suppose an intervention improves children’s wellbeing by reducing their average SDQ Total Difficulties Score by 2 points over the course of one year. Based on the mapping function, each one-point reduction in SDQ is associated with a +0.146 increase in life satisfaction (C-WELLBYs). 

• So, a 2-point reduction translates to:
  −2×−0.146 = +0.292 C-WELLBYs. 

Since one C-WELLBY is valued at £15,920 (2024 prices; HMT, 2021), this improvement equals a monetised wellbeing benefit of £4,649 per child per year. 

Because of its broader coverage, they recommend using the parent-reported SDQ as the preferred measure for mapping to C-WELLBYs. Where parent reports are not available, the teacher-reported SDQ provides a suitable alternative. In cases where the SDQ cannot be collected, children’s self-reported happiness (0-10 scale) can be used as a simple and practical proxy for estimating WELLBYs, applying a linear coefficient of 0.546.