Analyzing Differences in Child Well-Being Among U.S. States

• Published in: Child indicators research Vol. 6; no. 2; pp. 401 - 431
• Main Authors: O’Hare, William P., Mather, Mark, Dupuis, Genevieve, Land, Kenneth C., Lamb, Vicki L., Fu, Qiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.06.2013; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Child and School Psychology; Child Development; Children; Demographic aspects; Demography; Early Childhood Education; Factor Analysis; Principal component analysis; Principal components analysis; Public sector; Quality of Life Research; Redundancy; Regression (Statistics); Social Sciences; Social Work; Well being; Wellbeing; Variability among U.S. states; Child well-being; Composite index
• ISSN: 1874-897X; 1874-8988
• DOI: 10.1007/s12187-012-9173-3

This article develops a comprehensive composite state-level index of child well-being modeled after the Foundation for Child Development’s Child Well-Being Index (CWI) to assess state differences in child well-being among the 50 U.S. states in 2007. The state-level CWIs are composed of 25 state-level indicators clustered into seven different domains or dimensions of child well-being. In addition to examining state rankings and the inter-relationship among domains across states, statistics on 27 demographic, economic, and policy characteristics of the states are analyzed in a regression analysis with respect to their ability to explain state differences in the CWIs. Because of the large number of explanatory variables and the potential redundancy created thereby, a principal components analysis/composite index method is applied. This leads to three composite indices that simplify the regressor space and explain 66.0 % of the variance. A second regression that adds three key policy measures to the three structural indices explains 79.5 % of the variance. Key findings of the study pertaining to how the resources available to children provided by families, communities, and the public sector relate to child well-being are discussed.