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The Development and Happiness of Very Young Children

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  • Paul Anand
  • Laurence Roope

Abstract

The paper demonstrates how Sen’s (1985) alternative approach to welfare economics can be used to shed light on the wellbeing of very young children. More specifically, we estimate versions of the three key relations from his framework using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP, 2012) Survey. Our primary models provide evidence that skills are related to involvement in cognate activities with a parent, indicating a behavioural relationship between capabilities and activities which is not explicit in Sen’s original set-up, but is key to the development and happiness of young children. A second set of models indicates that the daily activities of very young children are related to household income but that in some cases the association with parenting inputs is stronger. Thirdly, we report happiness regressions for the children which seem to suggest that shopping and reading are valued but that their distribution is limited in some cases – probably either by household income or parental education. Across the piece, we find that the number of siblings is negatively related to activity involvement with parents, as hypothesised by Becker, but positively related to everyday, motor and social skills. Combined with evidence from other studies, we conclude that the capability approach provides a useful framework for understanding the economics of wellbeing across the entire life course.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Anand & Laurence Roope, 2016. "The Development and Happiness of Very Young Children," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 868, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
  • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp868
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    Cited by:

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    2. Emily McDool & Phillip Powell & Jennifer Roberts & Karl Taylor, 2016. "Social Media Use and Children’s Wellbeing," Working Papers 2016011, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    3. Paul Mark Mitchell & Samantha Husbands & Sarah Byford & Philip Kinghorn & Cara Bailey & Tim J. Peters & Joanna Coast, 2021. "Challenges in developing capability measures for children and young people for use in the economic evaluation of health and care interventions," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(9), pages 1990-2003, September.
    4. McDool, Emily & Powell, Philip & Roberts, Jennifer & Taylor, Karl, 2020. "The internet and children’s psychological wellbeing," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    5. Anand, Paul & Behrman, Jere R. & Dang, Hai-Anh H. & Jones, Sam, 2018. "Varied patterns of catch-up in child growth: Evidence from Young Lives," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 206-213.
    6. Huilin Wang & Xinxin Ma, 2019. "The Determinants of Utilization Ability and the Effects on the Functionings of Elders: Evidence from China," Asian Development Policy Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 7(2), pages 80-97, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    child development; well-being; happiness; daily activities; capabilities;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

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