Material Well-being, Social Relationships and Children’s Overall Life Satisfaction in Hong Kong

Abstract

There has been growing research interest into child poverty and child well-being in Asia. However the development of qualitative and quantitative data in the field predominately adopts ‘expert-led’ or adult-derived measures of child poverty. This article aims to explore variations in children’s overall life satisfaction by their socio-demographic characteristics and social relationships in Hong Kong. Data used in this article is drawn from the first wave of the Strategic Public Policy Research (SPPR) project– ‘Trends and Implications of Poverty and Social Disadvantages in Hong Kong: A Multi-disciplinary and Longitudinal Study’. This article reports, for the first time evidence based on a child-derived material deprivation index - thereby addressing the limitations in traditional adult-derived child poverty measures. The study found that child deprivation explained more of the variation in children’s overall life satisfaction than traditional adult-reported income poverty. Further analyses showed that children’s perceived positive relationships with family and teachers, perceived strong social support from family, and experience of being bullied were associated with their life satisfaction.