The Relation Between Children's Participation in Their Daily life and Their Subjective Well-Being

Children’s well-being and children’s right to participation are important concepts for those striving to improve children’s lives. Recent years have brought growing conceptual recognition that children’s rights, particularly children’s right to participation, are part of their well-being. However, these two concepts have been addressed separately, especially in research, as they are seen as two different goals of children’s lives. The current study empirically examines the connection between children’s participation in their daily lives (in their family, school and in their country) and their subjective well-being, both generally and in different life domains. The study used a representative sample of 3,102 Israeli children aged 10 and 12. The result indicate that children’s participation in their lives is connected to their subjective well-being, with participation in the family the strongest predictor. Gender and ethnicity were correlated with children’s subjective well-being, but did not moderate the connection between children’s participation and their subjective well-being.