The Children's Society uses Understanding Society to look at how children's wellbeing changes over time.
The latest Good Childhood Report from The Children’s Society finds that children’s happiness with their life, their friends, appearance, school, and schoolwork were all significantly lower in 2021/22, when compared to 2009/10.
Family was the only aspect of life where there was no significant difference in children’s average happiness compared to 2009/10. In 2021/22, on average, children were most happy with their family, and least happy with their appearance. Almost one in six children (15.6%) were unhappy with their appearance.
- In 2024, 10- to 17-year-olds were, on average, most happy with their family (out of the 10 aspects of life asked about in our Good Childhood Index). More children and young people (14.3%) were unhappy with school than with the nine other areas of life they were asked about (that is, they scored below the midpoint on the measure of happiness with school).
- More children and young people said they were worried about rising prices, compared with the other eight societal issues they were asked about. Two in five (41%) children and young people were ‘very’ or ‘quite’ worried about this issue.
- 23% of parents and carers said that they had found it ‘quite’ or ‘very’ difficult to manage financially between January and March 2024, which indicates that their households were in financial strain.
- One in six (17%) children and young people living in households in financial strain had low life satisfaction. For children and young people living in households not in financial strain, this was just under one in ten (9%).
The Children’s Society uses three main data sources for their report – Understanding Society, The Children’s Society’s own household survey, and PISA, the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment. Understanding Society data is used to track trends in children’s wellbeing over time. 10-15 year olds in Understanding Society answer questions on how they feel about their schoolwork, appearance, family, friends, the school they go to, and their life overall.
As highlighted in last year’s Good Childhood Report, the latest Understanding Society data continued to show concerning patterns for girls. Girls’ mean happiness scores for each of the six measures were significantly lower in 2021/22 than in 2009/10. In 2021/22, girls were significantly less happy on average than boys with their life, their family, their appearance, and their school.
“Understanding Society is an important resource for tracking trends in children’s wellbeing in the UK over time… it helps us identify areas of children’s lives that need attention.”
The Good Childhood Report, 2024.
You can read the Good Childhood Report 2024 on The Children’s Society website.
This research used youth survey and immigrant and ethnic minority boost sample data from Understanding Society data Waves 1-13, and harmonised British Household Panel Survey data Waves 1-18
Young people
