Abstract:

Overall, research on children’s subjective well-being has received considerable attention from researchers and policymakers in past decades. However, we know very little about children’s subjective well-being in Bangladesh, which has around 64 million children. This article attempts to fill part of this gap. It aims to identify the key socio-demographic and economic factors that are associated with children’s subjective well-being, using data from the Children’s Worlds 3rd Wave survey, which was conducted for the first time in Bangladesh in 2018. Over 3,000 children took part in the survey from three geographical regions in the country. Eight key socio-demographic factors were examined, and four – gender, family structure, rural-urban locality and geographic region – were found to be significantly linked with different levels of children’s subjective well-being in Bangladesh. Three economic factors – material deprivation, family finance worries, and affordability to buy enough food – were significantly associated with subjective well-being assessments in Bangladesh. Out of these seven significant factors, rural-urban locality had the highest effect on subjective well-being among children followed jointly by material deprivation, affordability to buy enough food, and geographical regions. These findings are discussed in the context of previous empirical studies and theories on subjective well-being with special emphasis on their theoretical, methodological and policy significance, not only for Bangladesh but also for cross-cultural research context.

摘要：

总体而言，在过去的几十年中，有关儿童主观幸福感的研究受到了研究人员和政策制定者的相当大的关注。但是，我们对孟加拉国儿童的主观幸福感知之甚少，孟加拉国约有6400万儿童。本文试图弥补这一空白。它旨在利用儿童世界第三次浪潮调查中的数据来确定与儿童主观幸福感相关的关键社会人口统计学和经济因素，该调查于2018年在孟加拉国首次进行。3,000多名儿童参加了该活动。来自该国三个地理区域的调查。研究了八个主要的社会人口统计学因素，其中四个-性别，家庭结构，在孟加拉国，发现城乡地区和地理区域与儿童主观幸福感的不同水平显着相关。孟加拉国的主观幸福感评估与三个经济因素（物质匮乏，家庭财务忧虑和负担得起购买足够的食物的能力）显着相关。在这七个重要因素中，城乡对儿童主观幸福感的影响最大，其次是物质匮乏，买得起食品的负担能力以及地理区域。这些发现是在以往的关于主观幸福感的实证研究和理论的背景下进行讨论的，特别强调其理论，方法和政策意义，不仅对孟加拉国而且对跨文化研究背景而言。