Wellbeing and risk for 11-year-olds

The everyday lives of 11-year-old children are dominated by their family and school settings, and the conditions within these two settings play an important role in terms of the children’s wellbeing. This report examines the relationship between 11-year-old children with a low level of wellbeing and risk factors in family and school settings, and it particularly examines the causes of long-term low levels of wellbeing.
The study shows that the causes of lack of wellbeing may be different for boys and girls. The family composition, such as growing up with one parent, plays a negative role for the wellbeing of girls. In turn, issues in the family's background, such as the parents with low educational level, may contribute to a low level of wellbeing for boys who in general experience poor wellbeing to a greater extent than girls. The study also shows that only very few 11-year-old children have poor well-being.
Children with long-term low levels of well-being are typically influenced by many simultaneous and often persistent risk factors, both in their family settings and at school.
The study is based on data from the national Danish Longitudinal Survey of Children (DALSC) being conducted by the Danish National Centre for Social Research (SFI), including a representative cross section of about 6,000 children born in Autumn 1995, as well as registers from Statistics Denmark. The survey has been commissioned by the Ministry of Social Affairs and financed the Ministry's public pool of funds for the area.