Children’s Relationships and Happiness: The Role of Family, Friends and the School in Four European Countries

The objective of this paper is to explore how contextual factors are related to children’s subjective well-being in a group of children from 9 to 12 years of age in four European countries with different welfare systems. The main aim of this study is to examine how type of family, friends, and school relationships, as well as the environment, are related to children’s subjective well-being (SWB). We use data from the International Survey of Children’s well-being for the analysis, which explores well-being through the perceptions and responses of children. We have performed bivariate analyses and applied multiple linear regression to examine the relational and contextual dimensions (family, friends, school and neighborhood) of children’s subjective well-being. We have taken the scale used by Russell as a measure of children’s subjective well-being since we consider it to be the most appropriate for comparing the satisfaction and happiness of children in different cultural contexts. The results show that gender, family structure, social relationships (family, friends and teachers) and neighborhood safety are significant correlates and predictors of SWB. The findings also show the relationship between variables such as friends, school, violence and SWB in the different countries, which could be related to the educational and welfare policies implemented by the different welfare states.