Experiencing Life Events and Childhood Subjective Wellbeing: A Longitudinal Analysis of Growing Up in Scotland

Conclusion

This project sought to explore the impact of experiencing life events between the ages of 7 and 15 on changes in subjective wellbeing to establish whether parental separation, bereavement or family accidents and illnesses cause any observable change in wellbeing over time. The findings indicated that, between the ages of 7 and 15, experiencing parental separation did have an observable negative impact on changes in subjective wellbeing.

The findings indicated that experiencing the death of a family member between the ages of 7 and 15 did not have an observable impact on changes in the subjective wellbeing of children. A statistically significant positive effect was observed for parental and sibling bereavement, however this result could be attributed to low participant numbers in the sample who experienced this life event. While previous literature exists which supports the notion that bereaved youth can experience positive effects such as resilience and personal growth (Sandler at al. 2008, Koehler 2010, Christ 2010), further analysis, with larger samples, is needed to confirm this.

Finally, experiencing an accident or illness within the family between the ages of 7 and 15 was not found to have an observable impact on changes in children's subjective wellbeing.

The findings from this analysis therefore conclude the following key points:

• Those who experienced parental separation were more likely to have a deterioration in life satisfaction, which was the same for subjective wellbeing, physical health and mental health.
• Those who experienced a family accident or illness were more likely to have a positive or negative change in life satisfaction , which was the same for subjective wellbeing, physical health and mental health.
• Life events in general were found to be the most influential for mental health compared with the other health and wellbeing outcomes.
• Across three of the four health and wellbeing outcomes, girls were more likely to experience a deterioration in the outcome compared with boys.