Where in Canada are children most happy with their lives and optimistic about their future - in what regions, in what type of homes, with what types of mothers, and among what groups of children? Is the religious commitment of the child and mother important? These questions are answered below for children aged 12 to 15 living in private households in the ten provinces, during the survey period, 1998-99. The estimates are based on the responses of children to two statements in Statistics Canada's National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth: "In general, I am happy with how things are in my life right now." and "My next five years look good to me." The potential responses for both statements were "disagree strongly", "disagree", "agree" and "strongly agree." Those indicating agreement with the latter questions are considered to be optimistic or hopeful about their future, or to have a positive outlook - these terms are used interchangeably.
Regional variation
Regarding child happiness in Canada, 29% strongly agree that they are happy while 63% agree they are happy, and the remainder, 8% disagree, including those who strongly disagree - Table 1. From this we can conclude that most children consider themselves to be happy, and one in three agrees strongly that he or she is happy. Regionally, children in Quebec are most likely to strongly agree, 33%, followed by those in Ontario, 28%, the Prairie provinces and British Columbia, 27%, and the Atlantic provinces, 26%. The regional variation is low.
Regarding optimism about the future, remarkably similar results appear: 29% strongly agree that they are optimistic, while 60% agree they are optimistic, and 11% disagree, including those who strongly disagree - Table 2. Regionally, children in Quebec are most likely to strongly agree, 34%, followed by those in the Prairie provinces, 30%, Ontario and British Columbia, 28%, and the Atlantic provinces, 26%. Again, the regional variation is low. From these results we can conclude that the majority of Canadian children are not only happy, but hopeful and optimistic about the future as well. Optimism and happiness seem to be closely related among children. Thus among those children who agree that their five year outlook is very good (those who strongly agree with the question on their prospects), 63% strongly agree that they are happy. Chart 1 portrays this association by region, and illustrates how Quebec children are more likely to be happy and hopeful than children in other regions, though differences are not great.
Variation by type of home
Children with two parents at home, and from higher income homes, might be expected to be happier and more optimistic or hopeful than lone parent children, owing to the greater resources available to them for their support. Children in step families may be considered least happy and hopeful of all because of the divided loyalties of the parents in some of these homes. Also, children whose parents support their education in private schools, usually at great cost to themselves, might be considered happier and more hopeful than other children. While the estimates lend some support to these views, the supporting evidence is not very strong.
Regarding the type of family, for example, 30% of children in two parent families strongly agree they are happy, compared with 27% of children in lone parent families, and 23% in step families - Table 1. Some 31% the children in two parent families strongly agree they are hopeful about the next five years, compared with 28% of children in lone parent families, and 21% in step families - Table 2. In both cases the children in step families are the worst off in terms of both happiness and hope in the future.
In the case of income, only the children in the highest household income group are noticeably happier and more hopeful about the future - Tables 1 and 2. Some 26% of children in each of low, medium and high income homes strongly agree that they are happy, compared with 34% of children in the highest income homes. Regarding hopefulness about the future, 26% to 29% of those in the low, medium and high income homes strongly agree they are hopeful about the future, compared with 34% of those in the highest income homes. The percentage of children who are not hopeful about the future falls according to household income: it is 14% of those in homes with low income, 8% in homes with middle income, 7% in homes with high income, and 5% in homes with the highest income.
Chart 2 portrays the variation in happiness and hopefulness about the future for the income groups and type of families. With only two exceptions, children in homes with high and the highest household income, the results for happiness and hopefulness are closely related. The exceptions may be explained as follows: children in high income families are more hopeful than others because they can reasonably aspire to the highest income group, while children already in the highest group may be less optimistic about attaining this level themselves, and have less perceived upward mobility.
Variation by type of mother
Children with mothers (parent most knowledgeable with regard to the child, usually the mother) who do not work, are well educated or who do not smoke may be expected to be happier and more optimistic than other children. The stay-at-home mothers would have more time available than working mothers for contributing to their child's well-being. Well educated mothers would have more knowledge of potential use to the child, and greater intellectual resources, than less educated mothers. And mothers who do not smoke would be more likely to be concerned about their child's health and consumption of second-hand smoke than mothers who smoke, and such concern may be symptomatic of concern for their child's well-being in other respects as well. Of course these factors are related to one another, for example, well-educated mothers are more likely to have paid jobs than their less educated counterparts, and the increased stress of paid work may be associated with the inclination to smoke, so that any simple or bivariate relationships with child happiness may be misleading.
The expected associations noted above show up only in part in Tables 1 and 2. For example, the children with stay-at-home mothers are more likely to strongly agree that they are happy (34%) than the children of working mothers (27% to 28%), though this difference is not great. The difference is even smaller regarding the children who strongly agree that the next five years look good - 32% of children with stay-at-home mothers, and 29% for working mothers. Chart 1 displays these results. Regarding the education of the mother, those children with university educated mothers are actually less likely to strongly agree that they are happy than the children of mothers with less education, though they are slightly more likely to strongly agree that their five year prospects are good. In both cases, though, the difference is small, 31% or 32% of the children versus 29%. Finally, the children with mothers who do not smoke are more likely to strongly agree that they are happy, and that their prospects are good, than the children with mothers who smoke, though again the margin of difference is small.
Variation by age and sex of the child
Expectations by age and sex concerning variation in happiness and optimism are difficult to form. The age range studied in this paper, 12 to 15, is one of great change among children both in terms of the move from public school to high school, and of physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual maturing. The child moves from being the oldest, a big fish in a little pond, to the youngest, a little fish in a seemingly big pond. One might expect anxiety to grow with the growing responsibilities and expectations, not to mention the peer pressure surrounding new possibilities such as dating and smoking, and considerations regarding choice of school subjects and a possible future career. On the other hand, children are also growing in the knowledge and ability they need to meet the new challenges, so that it is not at all clear that one should expect unhappiness or anxiety about the future to grow with age. Regarding variation by sex, it is possible that the greater sense of responsibility of girls compared with boys, plus an awareness of their possible future role as mothers results in a greater anxiety and less happiness and optimism than is the case for boys.
Though most of the age and sex variation in happiness and optimism is small, the one difference that stands out is the decrease in both happiness and optimism from age 12 to age 13 - refer to Tables 1 and 2, and Chart 2. Regarding happiness, some 36% of the twelve year olds strongly agree that they are happy, compared with 26% of the 13 year olds, 25% of 14 year olds, and 27% of the 15 year olds. This is one of the biggest differences of all those portrayed in Table 1. The changes from ages 12 to 13, in terms of school and physical, emotional and spiritual development, are probably greater than those experienced in other teenage years, up to age 15 at least. Concerning optimism, the fall from age 12 to 13 is not so great: 33% of the 12 year olds strongly agree that their five year prospects are good, compared with 27% of the 13 and 14 year olds, and 31% of the 15 year olds. As for variation by sex, a higher percentage of boys than girls strongly agree they are happy and optimistic, though the sex differences are small. Variations in happiness and optimism among boys and girls are analysed in detail below.
Variation by religious commitment
There are two aspects of religious commitment that might be expected to be related to happiness and optimism of children - faith community affiliation and degree of involvement, as measured by frequency of worship, for example. The degree of involvement is measured for both the mother and the child in order to see if the relationships differ; faith affiliation is measured only for the child since the child's and mother's affiliation would normally be the same. One argument for focussing on these characteristics is that, from the child's perspective, religious commitment may be viewed as a restriction on his or her freedom to pursue happiness, and dampen enthusiasm about the future. From the mother's perspective, her own religious involvement may provide her with the spiritual strength and guidance needed to better meet the needs of both parent and child at a most challenging phase of the child's life. Faith communities may differ in the degree of guidance and community support provided to both child and mother.
Concerning the faith affiliation of the child, the percentage of children who strongly agree they are happy and optimistic is highest among Catholic children living in Quebec, (33% and 34%, respectively), followed closely by other Catholic children (31% and 33%), liberal Protestant and conservative Christian children (27% happy, 26% and 28% optimistic), and the religiously non-affiliated (26% happy and 24% optimistic). The relatively high percentages for Quebec and other Catholic children stand out, as may be seen more clearly in Chart 4. Looking at frequency of worship, two patterns in the data appear. First, as the worship frequency of the mother increases, the percentage of children who strongly agree they are happy and optimistic increases. For example, only 24% of the children of mothers who do not worship strongly agree that they are happy, compared with 31% of the children of mothers who worship weekly. Secondly, the non-worshipping children are least likely to strongly agree that they are happy and optimistic, but happiness and optimism increase with worship frequency only up to a point, then it falls. These patterns stand out clearly in Chart 1.
The happiness and optimism of girls and boys: analytical results
When we control for major variables, some strong associations with happiness and optimism stand out for both girls and boys. A summary of some of the results of analysis follow; specific detailed results appear in Appendices 1 to 4. In this summary, only highly significant associations are mentioned (statistical significance at the 0.01 level) and the associations assume all other factors in the relationships portrayed in the appendices are held constant. Specific definitions of the variables appear in the footnotes to the appendices. It should be stressed that all results concern associations between variables, and should not be interpreted as portraying the determinants of happiness and optimism. To explore the actual determinants more sophisticated modeling is needed, though the present results should provide guidance concerning the specification of relationships.
First, we summarize the results of associations with the degree of happiness by girls and boys. In the case of all Canadian girls, happiness is found to decrease with age, is lower among girls whose mothers are involved in the labour market, and is greater among girls living in households with the highest household income compared with girls in households with low income - Appendix 1. In the case of girls affiliated with a faith community, happiness decreases with the child's age, is higher the more frequent the family worships (this variable is unavailable for the religiously unaffiliated), and is higher among households with high or the highest income classes compared with the low income class - Appendix 3. Canada's boys are happier if they are Roman Catholic rather than non-Christian or religiously unaffiliated, and if they are in lone parent rather than two parent or step families - Appendix 1. The religiously affiliated boys are happier if they are Roman Catholic, liberal Protestant, or other Christian rather than non-Christian; the more frequent by the family worships, if the boys are in lone parent rather than two parent or step families, and the more frequent by the mother smokes or drinks - Appendix 3.
Secondly, we summarize the results of associations with the degree of optimism by girls and boys. In the case of all Canadian girls, optimism is higher among liberal Protestants than non-Christians or the religiously unaffiliated, and among girls in the highest or middle income households rather than the low income households - Appendix 2. Among the religiously affiliated girls, optimism is higher the more frequent the family worships, in the highest or high income homes compared with the low income homes, and in Quebec rather than the Atlantic provinces or Ontario - Appendix 4. Canadian boys are more optimistic if they are Roman Catholic rather than non-Christian or religiously unaffiliated, and the more frequent the child worships - Appendix 3. The religiously affiliated boys are more optimistic if they are Roman Catholic rather than non-Christian, and less optimistic if they live in step families rather than two parent families, and if their mother has a university degree rather than less education - Appendix 4.
Some of these analytical results are opposite to what one might expect, other results accord with our expectations, while still other results are, surprisingly, not significant in a statistical sense. Why would boys in lone parent families be happier than boys in two parent families, for example, and religiously affiliated boys be happier the more their mother smoked or drank, and more optimistic if they live in lone parent families or in homes with higher frequency of drinking and smoking on the part of the mother? Why would religiously affiliated boys be more optimistic if their mother does not have a university degree rather than a university degree? Deeper analyses are needed to explore these questions. Most of the significant findings accord with expectation, however, and the household income and family worship frequency associations seem to be the strongest and most consistent. The general lack of significance of the associations with the frequency of child worship is also noteworthy, and a possible reason for this is given above - restriction on or control of freedom of thought, word and deed that may be either explicit or implicit in the message of faith communities. In future studies we would want to control for such factors as recent tragic events or ongoing sources of concern such as bullying in the child's life, not to mention recent events that might trigger happiness and optimism, such as dating or new friendships.
Frank Jones, Director of Research, Christian Commitment Research Institute, Adjunct Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa, and Deemed Employee, Statistics Canada. Thanks are due to Warren Clark of Statistics Canada, Sylvia Wargon, a former analyst with Statistics Canada, and Martha Sanipe of Public Works Canada. The author alone is responsible for any errors or omissions.