IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mcm/cilnwp/42.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Child Welfare Converging in the European Union?

Author

Listed:
  • John Micklewright
  • Kitty Stewart

Abstract

Discussion of convergence in the European Union in recent years has centred on macroeconomic indicators, in line with requirements for participation in the single currency. But it is convergence of living standards that is an ultimate goal of European Integration - the greater "economic and social cohesion" emphasized by the Treaty on Union. We assemble evidence on whether the well-being of one part of Europe's people, children, has been converging over the last two decades. We discuss methodological issues raised by measuring child welfare and its convergence in a group of countries, and then look in turn at trends in the economic well-being of children, mortality among children and young people, education, teenage fertility, and teenagers' own views of their life satisfaction. Evidence of convergence is mixed, and includes some trends of an unwelcome sort - convergence at a lower average level of welfare. The conclusions include comment on the need for more measurement of child well-being in Europe.

Suggested Citation

  • John Micklewright & Kitty Stewart, "undated". "Is Child Welfare Converging in the European Union?," Canadian International Labour Network Working Papers 42, McMaster University.
  • Handle: RePEc:mcm:cilnwp:42
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/rsrch/papers/CILN/cilnwp42.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Clark, Andrew E & Oswald, Andrew J, 1994. "Unhappiness and Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(424), pages 648-659, May.
    2. Peter Congdon, 1996. "Suicide and Parasuicide in London: A Small-area Study," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 33(1), pages 137-158, February.
    3. Easterlin, Richard A., 1974. "Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 111773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Anthony Atkinson & Timothy Smeeding & Lee Rainwater, 1994. "Income Distribution in European Countries," LIS Working papers 121, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    5. De Long, J Bradford, 1988. "Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1138-1154, December.
    6. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew Oswald, 2000. "The Rising Well-Being of the Young," NBER Chapters, in: Youth Employment and Joblessness in Advanced Countries, pages 289-328, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Sudhir Anand & Martin Ravallion, 1993. "Human Development in Poor Countries: On the Role of Private Incomes and Public Services," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 133-150, Winter.
    8. Baumol, William J, 1986. "Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare: What the Long-run Data Show," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 1072-1085, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roumiana Gantcheva & *UNICEF, 2001. "Children in Bulgaria: Growing impoverishment and unequal opportunities," Papers inwopa01/12, Innocenti Working Papers.
    2. Jane Falkingham, 2000. "From Security to Uncertainty: The impact of economic change on child welfare in central Asia," Papers inwopa00/5, Innocenti Working Papers.
    3. Flemming, J.S. & Micklewright, John, 2000. "Income distribution, economic systems and transition," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 843-918, Elsevier.
    4. John Micklewright, 2000. "Macroeconomics and Data on Children," Papers inwopa00/2, Innocenti Working Papers.
    5. Paul Gregg & Susan Harkness & Stephen Machin, 1999. "Poor kids: trends in child poverty in Britain, 1968-96," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 20(2), pages 163-187, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2004. "Well-being over time in Britain and the USA," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1359-1386, July.
    2. Volkan Yeniaras & Tugra Nazli Akarsu, 2017. "Religiosity and Life Satisfaction: A Multi-dimensional Approach," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 18(6), pages 1815-1840, December.
    3. Jonathan Gruber & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2006. "Do Cigarette Taxes Make Smokers Happier?," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Yew-Kwang Ng & Lok Sang Ho (ed.), Happiness and Public Policy, chapter 6, pages 109-146, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Oswald, Andrew J, 1997. "Happiness and Economic Performance," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(445), pages 1815-1831, November.
    5. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew J. Oswald, 2004. "Money, Sex and Happiness: An Empirical Study," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(3), pages 393-415, October.
    6. Michael Berlemann & Claudia Kemmesies, 2004. "Zur Entwicklung der Lebenszufriedenheit nach der deutschen Wiedervereinigung : eine empirische Analyse in Sachsen, Ost- und Westdeutschland," ifo Dresden berichtet, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 11(06), pages .3-10, December.
    7. Blanchflower, David G., 2001. "Unemployment, Well-Being, and Wage Curves in Eastern and Central Europe," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 364-402, December.
    8. Roberta Distante, 2013. "Subjective Well-Being, Income and Relative Concerns in the UK," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 81-105, August.
    9. David G. Blanchflower, 2009. "International Evidence on Well-Being," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being, pages 155-226, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Sousa-Poza, Alfonso & Sousa-Poza, Andres A., 2000. "Well-being at work: a cross-national analysis of the levels and determinants of job satisfaction," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 517-538, November.
    11. Yeniaras, Volkan & Akkemik, K. Ali & Yucel, Eray, 2016. "Re-considering the linkage between the antecedents and consequences of happiness," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 176-191.
    12. Michael Berlemann & Claudia Kemmesies, 2004. "Zur Entwicklung der Lebenszufriedenheit nach der deutschen Wiedervereinigung : eine empirische Analyse in Sachsen, Ost- und Westdeutschland," ifo Dresden berichtet, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 11(06), pages 3-10, December.
    13. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1733-1749, April.
    14. Robert MacCulloch & Silvia Pezzini, 2010. "The Roles of Freedom, Growth, and Religion in the Taste for Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 329-358, May.
    15. Miketa, Asami & Mulder, Peter, 2005. "Energy productivity across developed and developing countries in 10 manufacturing sectors: Patterns of growth and convergence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 429-453, May.
    16. Gardner, Jonathan & Oswald, Andrew J., 2007. "Money and mental wellbeing: A longitudinal study of medium-sized lottery wins," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 49-60, January.
    17. Violeta Misheva, 2016. "What Determines Emotional Well-Being? The Role of Adverse Experiences: Evidence Using Twin Data," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 17(5), pages 1921-1937, October.
    18. Fung, Michael K., 2009. "Financial development and economic growth: Convergence or divergence?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 56-67, February.
    19. Lionel WILNER, 2019. "The Dynamics of Individual Happiness," Working Papers 2019-18, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    20. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 2002. "It´s Not Factor Accumulation: Stylized Facts and Growth Models," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Editor) (ed.),Economic Growth: Sources, Trends, and Cycles, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 3, pages 061-114, Central Bank of Chile.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mcm:cilnwp:42. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demcmca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.