The Child and Youth Well-Being Index (CWI)
The Workforce and Family Program works with the Foundation for Child Development and Duke University's Child and Youth Well-Being Project to raise awareness about the status of children in the United States. The CWI is a tool that allows policy-makers and parents to look beyond the conventional wisdom and media headlines to see an evidence-based picture of the lives that children are leading.
What is the CWI?
The CWI is an annual, composite measure of trends in the quality of life, or well-being, of America's children since 1975. The CWI consists of 28 social inidicators organized in seven-quality of life domains.
What Areas Does the CWI Measure?
The CWI is made up of seven domains that measure different aspects of the life of children. The seven domains of the CWI are: Family Economic Well-Being; Health; Safety/Behavioral Concerns; Educational Attainment; Community Connectedness; Social Relationships; and Emotional/Spiritual Well-Being.
How is the CWI Constructed?
Each of the 28 indicators uses annual data from national statistical and sample surveys. Each indicator is indexed by percentage change from the base year, 1975. The base year is assigned a value of 100. A value greater than 100 in subsequent years means the social condition measured has improved. A value less than 100 means the social condition has deteriorated. The 28 indicators are combined into the seven domain indices; the seven domain indices are combined into the CWI. Equal weighting is used consistently in the CWI.
What Does the CWI Tell Us in General?
The CWI allows us to answer questions about broad trends in child well-being since 1975. For instance: Did overall child and youth well-being in the United States improve or deteriorate over the last two generations? By how much? In which areas of life?
What Does This Year’s CWI Tell Us?
• Progress in American children’s quality of life has stalled. Ending an eight-year-long upward trend, which lasted from 1994 through 2002, improvements in the well-being of America’s children and youth have stalled.
• Children’s health continues to decline. The most dramatic decline in the CWI was in the Health Domain, which reached its lowest recorded point this year. This downward trajectory is driven largely by a slowdown in the improvement of child mortality rates and an even more alarmingly dramatic rise in the number of children who are obese and overweight.
• Children are safer and engage in less risky behavior than ever. One positive trend in this year’s CWI was the continuing decline in rates of teen pregnancy, violent crime, and drug and alcohol use among youth, contributing to improvement in the Safety/Behavioral Concerns domain.
To dowload the 2007 CWI, please click here.
Additional Reports and Events
In addition to the 2007 CWI, the Workforce and Family Program has held several events to raise awareness of significant findings of the CWI. These events often included the release of separate reports.
Trends in Infancy/Early Childhood and Middle Childhood Well-Being, 1994-2006
New Report Details Surprising Trends
This report is the first to look comprehensively at the overall health, well-being, and quality of life of America's youngest children - from birth through eleven years old, using the FCD Child Well-Being Index (CWI), and to track and compare child well-being across three primary stages of development - early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence.
Key findings of the report include:
- Overall improvements in the well-being index are reflected across all age groups – infant/early childhood, middle childhood and adolescence. Each age group follows very similar positive trends across this time period.
- The Health Domain overall is on a dramatic decline, dragged down by rising obesity rates and the number of babies born at low birth weight. Research has linked the latter to an increase in delayed childbearing among women and the use of fertility drugs that make multiple births with lower birth weights more likely. The prevalence of obesity among children 6-11 is nearly four times what it was in the 1960s; for children 2-5, it is three times more.
- Some areas of health show steady improvement, driven by declining infant and child death rates (attributed to better prenatal and health care, nutrition, and seat-belt laws), rates of mothers smoking during pregnancy, blood lead poisoning and increased vaccinations.
To watch the event, view the speaker's presentations, or to download the report, please click here.
To read the Washington Post's front-page article about this Special Focus Report, please click here.
Racial and Ethnic Differences in Child Well-Being
Parents and policy makers have long looked to close the educational, health, economic and other gaps in child well-being between children of different backgrounds. This report examines trends in the well-being of children along racial and ethnic lines over the past 20 years in the United States. The report provides some surprising results about the true state of the disparities between children, explains where improvements are being made, and where more work needs to be done. The report contains projections for when gaps between non-white and white children might be closed.
Key findings of the report include:
- Black, Hispanic, and white children experienced overall improvements in the quality of life.
- Both black children and Hispanic children were advantaged compared to white children in the emotional/spiritual well-being domain.
- Black and Hispanic children also benefited from advances in the safety-behavioral domain, including reduced cigarette smoking, drinking alcohol, and use of illicit drugs.
- Gaps in family economic well-being narrowed for both black and Hispanic children as parental employment and health insurance coverage increased.
For more information on this event, please click here.
Child Well-Being in America and Abroad
On July 17, 2007, we convened a discussion on the status of American children in comparison to their counterparts in other English-speaking countries. The report details a mixed picture for the United States, revealing both areas of strength and areas in need of improvement. Key findings of the report include:
- The percent of households without an employed adult is lower in the United States than in all comparison countries. However, poverty rates are higher in the United States than in all comparison countries.
- Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom have better outcomes than the United States in the Health domain. Relatively high rates of infant mortality and children who are overweight and obese disadvantage the United States in this domain.
- Teen birth rates in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand are lower than in the United States. This indicator is a key figure in the Safety/Behavioral Concerns domain.
- The United States has a relatively high proportion of young adults who complete high school and obtain baccalaureate degrees. However, the proportion of children who attend preschool is lower in the United States than in all countries except the United Kingdom.
- 15-year old American students scored lower in mathematics and reading than their counterparts in all comparison countries on internationally administered standardized tests, leading to a last place finish in the Educational Attainment domain.
For more details on this event, or to download this report, please click here.
Obesity and Child Well-Being
There is no greater problem facing America’s children than the epidemic of overweight and obesity. The CWI shows that the increase in the proportion of obese and overweight children since 1975 has decreased the overall well being of children by more than 30%.
On October 4, 2007, the Workforce and Family Program convened a panel of experts for a meeting in the United States Capitol to discuss the causes of the obesity epidemic, and innovative approaches to addressing the problem.
For more information on this event, or to view video of the event, please click here.
The Child Well-Being Index is funded by the Foundation for Child Development and coordinated by the Child Well-Being Index Project at Duke University.
