Economics, as a discipline, has paid relatively little attention to children. Several explanations for this inattention are plausible: (1) economics tends to focus on models of individual choice and children are typically given limited agency; (2) economics focuses on analysis of markets while children live in a world largely outside the market as traditionally defined (e.g., home production activities and publicly provided schools and parks are central for children’s well-being); (3) households are often taken as the basic unit of account in studies of income or poverty, perhaps since data are seldom available at any other level (Phipps, 1999). Where attention has been paid to children, it has typically been in the context of “investing in children” to secure better outcomes in the future (e.g., Haveman & Wolfe, 1995). Particular attention has been given to the study of children at risk for future negative attainments as a result of growing up poor (e.g., Duncan & 1997).
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Keywords
- Life Satisfaction
- Family Income
- Canada Community Health Survey
- Social Indicator Research
- Child Life Satisfaction
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Burton, P., Phipps, S. (2010). In Children’s Voices. In: Kamerman, S.B., Phipps, S., Ben-Arieh, A. (eds) From Child Welfare to Child Well-Being. Children’s Well-Being: Indicators and Research, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3377-2_13
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