5 minute read

By Olivier Thevenon (olivier.thevenon@oecd.org), Nora Brüning (nora.bruning@oecd.org) and Marine Matsumura (marine.matsumura@oecd.org), OECD Centre on Well-Being, Inclusion, Sustainability and Equal Opportunity (WISE)

Understanding and taking informed policy actions to improve child well-being requires reliable data on a range of outcomes – from health and education to social interactions and living conditions (OECD, 2021¹). These data aid policymakers in identifying emerging challenges, prioritising areas for improvement, and in  targeting support towards those who need it most. A comprehensive set of high-quality indicators to monitor child well-being can also support holistic, whole-of-government policies that ensure every child enjoys a positive childhood.

To help navigate the latest available data on child well-being, the OECD provides two tools: the Child Well-being Data Portal and the Child Well-being Dashboard. The latter serves as a tool for policy makers and the public to track countries’ efforts in promoting child well-being. It includes around 20 key internationally comparable indicators on child well-being outcomes, along with additional contextual indicators on key factors influencing child well-being and relevant public policies. Meanwhile, the Data Portal provides a more extensive resource, offering over 300 comparative measures on child well-being outcomes and the environmental factors that shape them. These resources centralise cross-national data on child well-being across the OECD Member and Partner countries, and European non-OECD countries. They provide data on child outcomes organised into four key areas: (1) material outcomes, (2) physical health, (3) cognitive and educational outcomes, and (4) socio-emotional well-being. Where data permits, they also include breakdowns by gender, socio-economic status, age, family background, and migrant status, enabling a deeper exploration of well-being inequalities among children.

Additionally, these tools include data on potential drivers of child well-being through indicators covering home and family life, life at school and in early childhood education and care, social life and community involvement, and online life. The datasets also offer insights into public policies related to child well-being.  Recognising the value of children’s perspectives, many of the published indicators are derived directly from child surveys.

Nearly 200 comparative measures were recently updated and added on the Data Portal. This update expands the set of available indicators, particularly regarding children’s attitudes towards and use of digital devices as well as children’s subjective well-being outcomes and related factors such as children’s relationships with others and risky health behaviours.

Declining life satisfaction of adolescents: A growing concern in recent years

In almost all OECD countries, children today report lower life satisfaction than a decade ago; a trend that is receiving increasing attention from policy makers and the public. According to the OECD’s PISA data, when 15-year-olds students were asked to rate their satisfaction with life overall on a scale of 0 to 10, the average across OECD countries has declined over time: from 7.4 in 2015 to 7.1 in 2018 and 6.7 in 2022. This decrease is statistically significant in 25 out of the 28 countries with available data. Only in Hungary, Japan and Korea did adolescents’ overall life satisfaction not change significantly over this period.

The indicators published in the Data Portal are intended to offer additional, nuanced information on whether outcomes and trends are affecting different groups of children differently. For example, in the case of life satisfaction, the available measures show that the worsening trend is being felt by children at both ends of the life satisfaction scale in most countries. On average across the OECD, 18% of adolescents reported low life satisfaction (a value of ‘4’ or below) in 2022, up from nearly 12% in 2015 (Figure 1). This share has increased in all countries except Hungary and Korea, where the changes are not statistically significant.

At the other end of the scale, the proportion of children who are highly satisfied with their lives overall (reporting a ‘9’ or ‘10’ on a 0 to 10 scale) has decreased substantially, by ten percentage points from almost 36% in 2015 to 26% in 2022. Most OECD countries with available data show a significant drop between nearly 3 and 21 percentage points in this group of adolescents. Only Hungary (no significant change), Japan, and Korea (both with a 2% rise) did not record this general pattern.

These trends may be driven by a variety of factors, to differing extents in different countries. The growing perception of academic pressure is one element thought to be contributing to a decline in overall life satisfaction (Moksnes et al., 2016²).
Approximately 17% of 15-year-olds reported feeling overwhelmed by schoolwork in 2013–14, compared to nearly 26% in 2022, with girls experiencing a greater increase than boys. The COVID-19 pandemic led to school closures and social lockdowns, disrupting education and social connections, which contributed to increased anxiety, loneliness, and depression (Elharake et al., 2023³; Farrell et al., 2023⁴)
The proportion of 15-year-olds reporting high life satisfaction decreased sharply between 2018 (33% on average across the OECD) and 2022 (26%), while the share of those with a low life satisfaction saw a more moderate increase from 16% to 18%. Additionally, increased screen time and social media use impact sleep quality and, in some countries, lead to greater exposure to cyberbullying – both of which are linked to lower life satisfaction (Sorrentino et al., 2023⁵; Hale et al., 2025⁶).

With which areas of their life are children most dissatisfied?

To further our collective understanding of children’s satisfaction with their lives, the Data Portal also includes information on adolescents’ (dis)satisfaction with several life domains. These indicators are part of a small number of novel and promising indicators that have been added despite covering only a limited set of OECD countries.

In the latest PISA 2022 wave, adolescents in a subset of countries were asked about their satisfaction with ten different domains, spanning their relationships with parents or guardians and friends, school-related factors, their neighbourhood, health, material possessions, and self-image. Figure 2 shows that among the life domains listed above, at least one in four 15-year-olds express dissatisfaction with their appearance, how they spend their time, and school-related factors (learning at school, life at school, and relationship with teachers).

Not all children are equally likely to experience dissatisfaction in various areas of their lives. This depends on the circumstances or events they are exposed to, as well as on their socio-economic and family background. Indicators from the Data Portal show, for example, that girls consistently report lower satisfaction with their lives overall, and across various life domains, than boys in the surveyed OECD countries.

To develop policies that enhance children’s lives – and potentially their overall life satisfaction – it is vital to understand the forces behind these trends. The Child Well-Being Data Portal offers a comprehensive dataset that enables an in-depth exploration of various aspects of children’s lives, including their material conditions, health, personal and social development, as well as the influence of their family, school, and digital environments. To support country comparisons, the Child Well-being Dashboard provides a interactive features, including country profiles and comparison tools for key indicators. Together, these resources help uncover underlying trends and define the challenges that need to be addressed, providing valuable insights to inform and improve child-focused policies.

References

1. OECD (2021), Measuring What Matters for Child Well-being and Policies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/e82fded1-en ↩︎
2. Moksnes, U. et al. (2016), “The Association Between School Stress, Life Satisfaction and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents: Life Satisfaction as a Potential Mediator”, Social Indicators Research, Vol. 125/1, pp. 339-357, https://doi.org/10.1007/S11205-014-0842-0/TABLES/5. ↩︎
3. Elharake, J. et al. (2023), “Mental Health Impact of COVID-19 among Children and College Students: A Systematic Review”, Child Psychiatry and Human Development, Vol. 54/3, pp. 913-925, https://doi.org/10.1007/S10578-021-01297-1/TABLES/2. ↩︎
4. Farrell, A. et al. (2023), “Loneliness and Well-Being in Children and Adolescents during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review”, Children, Vol. 10/2, p. 279, https://doi.org/10.3390/CHILDREN10020279/S1. ↩︎
5. Sorrentino, A. et al. (2023), “Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Cyberbullying and Cybervictimization Prevalence among Children and Adolescents? A Systematic Review”, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol. 20/10, p. 5825, https://doi.org/10.3390/IJERPH20105825/S1. ↩︎
6. Hale, L. et al. (2025), “What Do We Know About the Link Between Screens and Sleep Health?”, Handbook of Children and Screens, pp. 101-107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69362-5_14. ↩︎